Virginia 2009 Megathread

[MODU]

Best of luck, Ben.  I did my absentee ballot a while ago because I wasn't sure if I would be on travel on election day.  I've long argued that Deeds was the Democrat's best chance at winning the election.  But as history has shown, Virginia rarely votes for a governor that shares the same party as the President.  Add in to the past 8 years of Democrat rule and a state government that is having problems meeting their financial obligations, the odds were stacked against him.

[MODU]

Well, I'm off to cast my (pointless) ballot.

Unless Deeds loses/wins by 1 vote, it's no more pointless than it otherwise is.

I agree, in a sense.  Every vote counts.  Just think ... if 500 people feeling that their vote was pointless and decided not to vote, and the election result mirrors 2005, those 500 voters could have swung the election in a different direction.  So always, always go and vote.

With that said, I'm down here in Southern VA at the moment and will try to catch the McDonnell victory party and get some photos.  If McDonnell is leading by as much as the polls are indicating, then the election results showing him the winner should come out fairly quickly (leaving me with enough time to get back home before it gets too late).

[MODU]

it's the wrong lesson to interpret the election as "never nominate a blue dog again" -- that's just stupid

^^^^

Thank you for using your brain.  People outside of Virginia need to remember that the state is moderate-to-conservative in their political ideology.  Unlike San Fran, where you can run a generic hard liberal and win by a wide margin, attempting that in Virginia will result in defeat.  Deeds loss, among other things, was more due to his extensive negative campaign.  While at first it gave him a bump in the polls, the continuing bashing of McDonnell over the single topic led to voter fatique as well as leading to doubts about Deeds (thinking he was a one-trick pony).  It had nothing to do with him being a blue dog.  That was actually a strong asset for him, and why he beat Moran and McAuliffe.