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I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Bob Holsworth (Virginia Tomorrow) speak Monday night about the recent elections. He is the best political analyst in Virginia in my opinion and his insights on campaigns and strategies never fail to enlighten.

He said that one of the many aspects where the Creigh Deeds campaign (as well as the Wagner and Shannon campaigns) fell short was in its inability to respond to the federal issues — card check, cap-and-trade, nationalized health care — Republican Bob McDonnell repeatedly raised as not only an intrusion into Virginians’ sovereignty, but as harmful to Virginians themselves —their prosperity, opportunity, way of life, health. In other words, upholding the 10th Amendment, which leaves to the states all powers not specifically delineated to the federal government.

Senator Deeds couldn’t dis President Barack Obama, who historically carried Virginia last year, and turn off the liberal Democrat base and its newly energized voters, by opposing those signature liberal issues. So the best he could do was assert they had nothing to do with running the commonwealth. Dr. Holsworth said Deeds’ inability to satisfactorily deal with this dynamic pleased no one — crucial independents, who broke overwhelmingly to the GOP, nor the base.

Who am I to disagree with Dr. Bob? But I want to add that it was more than that. Defending one’s state against the onslaught of the federal leviathan is a constitutional charge. So it is a legitimate issue. But Senator Deeds, reflective of today’s ingrained liberalism, at the very least couldn’t respond to the issues because he doesn’t understand the 10th Amendment. Doubtful. So that leaves the worst, but more likely, case — a total disregard for it. When state politicians become too comfortable accepting mandates and force-fed programs from Washington, which stunt states from their roles as democratic laboratories and distinctly different places to live, they deserve to lose. Indeed, federal issues always have and always will be integral to state issues because the constitutional relationship of states to the national government demands it.  

Last week, the candidates for attorney general, Republican Senator Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Delegate Steve Shannon, both of Fairfax, had only their second debate and the first that was broadcast — but only on Washington radio station WTOP-AM. (Democrat debate ducking has been taken to a whole new level this year.)

What’s particularly perplexing is the lack of coverage the media has affored the few debates that have taken place in any of the three statewide races, especially given the media’s endless pontificating about elections and issues versus slick and negative advertising. (With only a handful of debates, it sure doesn’t take a lot to cover them, either.) Yet, three candidates repeatedly refuse to debate (despite being well behind in the polls) and, when there is one, it is not on statewide television.

But we did have that one AG debate on WTOP’s The Politics Program with Mark Plotkin (listen here). The highlight seems to be Delegate Shannon’s ”I am a pro-business, law and order centrist,” comment when, in fact, he has a 100-percent AFL-CIO voting record (see AFL-CIO here) and has received nearly $150,000 in campaign contributions from big labor during his six years in the General Assembly — $120,000 of which has come during his attorney general run (see VPAP.org). 

What makes the statement even more astonishing is that Delegate Shannon attended a seminar in mid-September in Annapolis, Md., put on by the Democrat Attorneys General Association, that taught attorneys general how to sue companies into achieving liberal, extremist environmental policies not won through the legislative process. A suit-filing, job-killing AG. Now that’s business friendly.

As if that wasn’t enough, when it was Delegate Shannon’s turn to ask the one question each candidate was allowed to ask of the other, he asked Senator Cuccinelli about global warming and “cap and trade.” If this is so important, why do Delegate Shannon’s television ads stress Internet predators?

Instead, he wants to sue employers into closing down, such as the MeadWestvaco plant in Creigh Deeds’ own senate district. Read here what company Vice President Mark George wrote in an op-ed about the affect “cap and trade” would have on its Alleghany factory. It’s liberal strategy to redefine terms (marriage comes to mind), but instead of coming down the middle, Delegate Shannon comes right down Leftist Lane. 

Not exactly. But this week Democrat gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds has thrown his fourth Hail Mary by my count. First, his lackluster campaign — a candidate whose idea of a solution to any problem is “to work together with the General Assembly” and who ducks hot issues such as cap-and-trade, card check, FOCA and nationalized health care, richly deserves the “lackluster” moniker — ran the abortion play. Sacked! Then came the “Bob McDonnell is George Bush” play. Sacked! Of course, there’s the thesis play, as complicated as Al Groh’s three-quarterback-spread-offense and not nearly as effective, especially since Deeds voted for the Marriage Amendment twice and has displayed his own views against (his words) “special rights” for homosexuals.

Now, Deeds is running radio ads claiming that McDonnell is a tax increaser, despite the fact that Deeds has voted for almost any bill that would have raised any tax over the last eight years, including the 2004 record $1.4 billion tax increase. He also backed each one of the Tim Kaine/Dick Saslaw tax increase proposals, including a $1.015 billion increase that would have raised gas taxes ever year for five years when gas was near $3.00 a gallon (SB 713/2008).It would have cost Virginia families as much as $624 more per year in year five. 

All hypocrisy aside, if McDonnell is a Bush clone and Bush cut taxes (which ruined the economy, according to Deeds) where is Deeds’ logic? According to Deeds, tax increases are good! That’s why he’s proposing another one if elected! Besides, if Deeds wants to throw federal issues into the race, shouldn’t he answer to the above policies his party is pushing in Washington (including cap-and-trade which would shut down the largest employer in his senate district)?

Seems to me that Senator Deeds, instead of throwing Hail Mary’s, should be praying them instead.

In the 1980s, when Virginia was an electoral lock for Republican presidential candidates, and when the GOP won the presidency three successive terms, Virginia Republicans weren’t nearly as successful. In fact, they lost three gubernatorial elections on the trot.

One rhetorical tactic the GOP tried during those campaigns was to tie the Democrat to the rampant liberalism personified by big spenders, culture relativists, moral equivalency types and foreign policy weaklings such as Tip O’Neil, Patsy Schroder, Teddy Kennedy, Jim Wright, Tom Harkin and the whole motley crew.

The Dems here inevitably replied that “Virginia Democrats are different” and Chuck Robb, Gerry Baliles and Doug Wilder certainly lent that persona, if not actual substance, and the public seemed happy enough with them. All of which has come full reverse cycle in this year’s campaign. That is to say, Democrat gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds won’t say where he stands on what the “D.C. Democrats” are doing. Those are national issues he says, although a governor must be prepared to defend against federal the encroachment that inhibits his state’s right of self government and to be a laboratory of innovation.

But Senator Deeds won’t even say whether he supports or opposes “cap and trade” which would close the largest employer in his senate district! He won’t comment, either, on socialized medicine, card check,  government control of the Internet and radio, or mandated abortion on demand, all of which are, or have been, put forth by the Obama administration and its uber-liberal allies in Congress.

But waaaaaaaaaaaaaaait just one minute!

He will comment on former President George W. Bush. That’s right, Senator Deeds has new radio and television ads attacking the former president. So, who’s he running against? Oh, and by the way, where’s the mention of Governor Tim Kaine in those ads? Until a few months ago — when the governor’s popularity began to plunge — Senator Deeds was fond of saying that he would continue the Kaine model. (Being Democrat National Committee chairman kinda debunks the whole “bi-partisan” thing.)

So, apparently, not even state issues are on the Deeds itinerary. Let’s see: Senator Deeds won’t talk about the last four years in Virginia and he won’t talk about the last eight months in Washington. Guess that “Hope and Change” ain’t working to well for him, either.

What a 24 hours for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell: First, as reported in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot’s Pilot on Politics Blog yesterday, a poll by the whack job leftist blog Daily Kos, conducted by Research 2000, has McDonnell up over Democrat Creigh Deeds by a 51-43 margin (see poll internals, here).

This is on the heels of polls this week by WDBJ-TV/SurveyUSA that showed him up by 15 percentage points and Public Policy Polling (another liberal pollster) that showed him up by 14 percentage points. (These two polls also show Republicans Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli leading their Democrat opponents by double figures.)

Then, McDonnell was selected by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s weekly radio/Internet address. In it, McDonnell puts some realism into the hype of yesterday’s unemployment report (the rate went down, but 240,000 more jobs were lost) and spoke plainly and practically about the dangers of government takeovers of the energy (so-called “cap-and-trade”) and health care industries, as well as enabling union dominance at the expense of employee freedom (”card check”); and a how dynamic society free of unnecessary government regulation and litigation can create a prosperous economy. 

Bob McDonnell points to positive policies that unleash freedom and creativity; “cap-and-trade” would put 1,500 Virginians out of work at the MeadWestvaco Plant in Covington.

Last Month, Chris Freund, vice president of policy and communications for The Family Foundation of Virginia, addressed the Tuesday Morning Group Coalition’s monthly meeting in Richmond. He was part of a panel which discussed everything from the environment to economics. It’s not a pretty picture. Scary, actually: card check, FOCA, partial-birth abortion on demand, liberal judges, God out of the public square entirely, “fairness doctrine,” high taxes, cap and trade us into rationing energy, no drilling nowhere. You get the idea.

So, while the media is sucking everyone into the new Era of Good Feeling ushered in by the “messiah,” a little dose of reality (to find the entire panel and the topics discussed, click here):

Last night we posted a breaking news story which soon became the talk of cable news and is dominating talk radio today (click here). A tape of an interview Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama gave in January to The San Francisco Chronicle has him saying he wants to put the coal industry out of business.

More of the tape has come to our attention since. If you haven’t heard, Senator Obama admits that under his “cap and trade” proposal  . . . well, why don’t you listen for yourself:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

So, he doesn’t mind mile-high energy prices? Then why was he blaming everyone and their brother for them earlier this year when oil and gas prices reached record levels? This is a man who is not afraid to speak his mind. He clearly has the most leftist agenda in modern American history; perhaps in all of American history. The question is, why aren’t people taking him at his word? Senator Obama says he wants to make things fair in America. What’s fair about the government targeting an industry vital to our way of life and those who work hard in such an industry? 

Here’s an objective source: National Journal. It is regarded by both sides in Washington as non-partisan. (Full disclosure: Obama’s press secretary worked there before joining his campaign.) It ranks Senator Obama as the most liberal senator in Congress. The startling aspect of this isn’t that fact, because rankings can be relative. However, in this case, it says much that he is rated more liberal than even Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who for the record calls himself a socialist. Sanders is an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats. The third most liberal senator? Joe Biden.

One more quote voters should know about: It comes from Senator Obama’s autobiography, Dreams From My Father. Obama wrote, ”I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”