This is from Moe Lane’s diary (http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/10/29/doomwatch-why-creigh-deeds-is-losing/) about a question posed in the last Virginia Governor’s debate. The question was whether the candidate could find one good reason to vote for his opponent. Bob McDonnell said this about Creigh Deeds:

McDONNELL: He’s a good family man. He’s worked hard to represent his district well for 18 years. To me, he’s a good story of somebody living and accessing the American dream. You know, he tells the story about … first guy in his family to go to college with four $20 [bills] in his pocket and now he’s competing for the job held by Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. To me, that’s a great story. I think there’s a hundred reasons why I’d be a better governor than him, but for the way, and this is his own personal life story, the way he has told it — it obviously happened because of tremendous hard work, tremendous perseverance to be able to get to the level that he is at, and I think that’s very admirable.

And you know what? Bob McDonnell is exactly right. Creigh Deeds is a decent man, a left of center Democrat that is pretty well tolerated in Virginia. He is not a rabid liberal, but cut from the same cloth as the two Democrat Senators that represent Virginia right now, Mark Warner and Jim Webb.

The reason that he is going to lose, and lose badly, is that this election is a referendum on Barack Hussein Obama. Period. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. Virginians are horrified at the hairpin left Pelosi, Reid and Obama have taken, and this is their first chance to express their outrage. Republicans, Independents and moderate Democrats are energized, turnout among them will be high, and Republicans will sweep statewide office. Is there any doubt that this abrupt turning of the tide is the reason both Webb and Warner voted against the $250 billion ”Doc Fix” bill that recently was put to a vote?

Virginia is coal and Second Amendment friendly, business friendly, independent, modern (Virginia’s Doug Wilder was the first black elected governor in the nation) and does not take kindly to bullying or the heavy hand of the federal government. One of Obama’s lame efforts at support came at Old Dominion University in mostly African-American Norfolk, which is hardly wading into the teeth of the storm. Anywhere else in the state and he would have been met with an even greater number of protests than he was at this friendly venue. AP confirms the new Obama / Deeds template, which cynically counts on race to pull out a victory:

The Deeds campaign’s new Obama ad is airing only in the Richmond and Hampton Roads markets for now, but will likely be expanded statewide.

Those regions also include heavy concentrations of African-American voters. A heavy black turnout is integral to any Democratic plan for victory

It’s too late for Creigh Deeds, who belatedly embraces the man that cost him the Governorship. Democrats will downplay the significance of this race, and play up a possible victory in NY-23 and New Jersey, but Virginia is the cowbell of the nation. Bet on it.