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The DNC Chairman, Governor Tim Kaine (contact here) sounded off last night in the attorney general’s campaign. Literally. He voiced a “robo call” on behalf of Democrat AG candidate Steve Shannon. Unfortunately, he really didn’t have much to say about Delegate Shannon’s qualifications.

Instead, he launched into a vicious attack on Republican attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli, using a Washington Post editorial as cover for calling him “bigoted” (see Norm’s Leahy’s first-hand account at Tertium Quids). I, myself, got a call from an African-American friend immediately after he received the call. He reasoned the calls were going into African-American neighborhoods to pump the fear of Satan into otherwise disinterested black voters. But they also went into upper income, socially conscious (i.e., “moderate”) white neighborhoods, too, the areas that the GOP seems to be gaining back this campaign. Which makes sense: with a double digit lead, the only way to defeat Senator Cuccinelli is to expand the voter universe and flip some votes (or get them to skip the AG ballot).

What is interesting is why the DNC chairman and his hacks think they can pick off Senator Cuccinelli. In the SurveyUSA poll, out today, he has the largest lead of the three (20 points!) — and even the Democrat Public Policy Poll says he leads in all regions of the commonwealth, including the liberal bastion of Northern Virginia. (How can that be?) The answer? Trashing the constitution and our founding principles. By parodying Senator Cuccinelli’s principled stands and record of adhering strictly to the constitution, liberals think they can caricature him into something abominable because adhering to Life and Liberty aren’t nearly so important as doling out government-style happiness.

No matter whether one interprets “bigotry” to be the racial kind or the “intolerant of other lifestyles” kind (the call left that open to your interpretation), it’s interesting to note that it was Senator Cuccinelli who accepted, attended, spoke and stayed late to meet people at the Virginia NAACP’s recent forum and Delegate Shannon who accepted — but stood them up. It’s also strange that Governor Kaine thought highly enough of Senator Cuccinelli to work with him on this summer’s special session to remedy the impact on Virginia from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz decision. (You remember . . .the session Shannon called a “political stunt.”)

Even stranger is Delegate Shannon’s previous dinner engagements at the home of Senator Cuccinelli. Guess he was an okay guy before he went up double digits, huh? 

Ever since he took the DNC job, Governor Kaine has not been able to decide whether he is governor or desperate partisan in chief. His level of campaigning is beneath the dignity of the office Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson once occupied.

Public Policy Polling, a Democrat polling organization, released a new poll this morning (see its news release here) that shows Republican Bob McDonnell maintaining a lead over Democrat Creigh Deeds in Virginia’s governor’s race by a 48-43 margin. This is smaller than previous polls. However, given the leftward slant of the organization, and the relentless attacks by Deeds on McDonnell for the last three weeks, it appears to be good news for the Republican. See Bruce Drake at his PoliticsDaily.com Poll Watch Blog here for insight on the internal numbers, while the Richmond Times-Dispatch mentions methodology here.

Republican consultant Peter Foster looked at the poll’s internals and offered us this analysis of how the numbers must play out for each candidate:

The good news is that McDonnell continues to lead by five points heading into the final month. While this is closer than they (PPP) had the race two months ago, that appears to be entirely the result of Democrats waking up and realizing there’s an election going on. McDonnell still leads among independents by a margin of 53-37 percent, and he’s getting 96 percent of the Republican vote. Deeds is getting 82 percent of the Democrat vote. One potential issue with these poll numbers is that they probably oversampled Democrats overall, as their respondents are 37 percent Democrat, only 29 percent Republican, and 34 percent self-identified independent. I seriously doubt that that will be an accurate reflection of the Election Day turnout, but, for argument’s sake, let’s play with those numbers.

The reason to expect the race to continue to get closer is that of the nine percent who are undecided, 53 percent are Democrats, while only seven percent are Republicans. The other 40 percent are independents. Currently, McDonnell is getting 98 percent of the Republicans who have made up their minds and 59 percent of independents who have made up their minds, and Creigh Deeds is getting 94 percent of Democrats who have made up their minds. If you follow that formula and give McDonnell 98 percent of the Republican undecideds and 59 percent of the independent undecideds, and give Deeds 94 percent of the Democratic undecideds, then this adds up to a very close race on Election Day, with McDonnell winning with 51.03 percent of the vote.

The bottom line is that McDonnell is in the stronger position headed into the final month, but it’s going to be a very close race, and, regardless of what the turnout percentages end up being in terms of Republican, Democrat and independent, if McDonnell maintains his levels of support among Republicans and among independents, he’ll win in a close race.

Once last thing to consider are two factors are not fully measured by the polls. One is the lower turnout among specific, traditional Democrat voting blocs, such as black voters, which surely will be affected by former governor, and fellow Democrat, Doug Wilder’s refusal to endorse Deeds, as well as some liberal base groups who are turned off by his flip-flops over the years on social issues. The second is under reported story — the registration of thousands of new conservative voters by several organizations, such as pro-life, Second Amendment and Tea Party groups.