As a Virginian who followed this election very closely and actually did some blogging during the primary I can't begin to state my dissatisfaction with the way the Deeds campaign was run.  He ran away from Obama, not even inviting him to get involved until last week.  He ran away from health care - probably THE most important issue for Virginians except for the urban areas' problem with traffic (particularly Northern Virginia).  He hinted that we might have to increase taxes to take care of our looming infrastructure crisis and complete lack of funding for roads under our current biannual budget, but FAILED to explain why that might be necessary or the amount involved.  This allowed the Republicans to run one ad after another screaming "run for the hills, Deeds is going to tax you".  Never mind that there is absolutely no other way around the fact that we're going to have to do something to raise the money or else the only other choice is to take the money from education and other services.

He ran away from the green energy issue.  He failed to spend any time discussing the ridiculous "plan" McDonnell had for the transportation crisis, preferring instead to talk about some thesis McDonnell wrote in law school 20 years ago.  Big freakin' deal.  Most people responded with:  "Yeah, I get it, McDonnell is a neanderthal and a dinosaur on women's issues, but what's he going to do about the transportation crisis?"  McDonnell showed them a plan - a laughable, ludicrous, ain't gonna work plan, but a plan nevertheless - while Deeds failed to really talk about the issue at all.  Deeds ran on being just a nice home-boy from downstate Western Virginia, when the people he needed to impress were the reliably Democratic leaning suburbanites of Northern Virginia and the inner city denizens of Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Virginia Beach.

Deeds's failure to mount any kind of campaign meant that the highly qualified candidate for Lieutenant Governor was dragged down with him, and the highly qualified candidate for Attorney General lost to a grinning, opinionated idiot in the Eric Cantor mold who almost pathologically worships Ronald Reagan (always taking care to mention him in EVERY speech) and who is on record as stating that he will only enforce the laws he agrees with.  Wonderful.  Two ideologues and a lazy-butt (our current Lt. Governor is on dozens of committees and has responsibilities, but NEVER attends meetings) running Virginia.  This should be fun.

Dave Kooker wrote:

Deeds was probably smart enough to realize there were more angry tax paying right wing terrorist voters in the State of Virginia than tax base looters and deadbeats.  Obama is far too Liberal even for the moderates in the Northeast U.S. and tried to separate himself from Obama.

It would not have mattered how intelligent and pro-active Deeds could have campaigned.  He was going to lose.  Liberalism and re-distribution of wealth always sounds enticing until the populace is ensnared by its confiscation and authority.  It is always nice to point to that other nasty guy who is supposively rich and can pay more than his/her share for ‘Social Justice’.

America learned very quickly in one year how insidious redistribution of private property really is.

Deeds wasn't smart at all, and he didn't give enough credit to the Virginia voter to understand what he was asking for, since he didn't ask for anything other than a vote.  Having failed even to produce a plan or to explain what was wrong with his opponent's plan he doomed himself. 

As for your attack on Obama, are you not aware that Obama won Virginia handily?  That in the last few elections we have elected Democratic Senators Webb and Warner? 

Virginians aren't stupid, and if they're faced with someone who doesn't play on the one-note theme of "taxes bad" and actually explains why a tax might be necessary they respond favorably.  Virginia is often pointed to as the best run state in the country.  It's had two successive Democrats as governors who succeeded the disastrous James Gilmore, the last Republican to hold the position. He almost drove the state into the ground with his zeal to cut taxes and services and left it in serious debt.  His actions decimated the general fund and threatened our ratings.  Then Democratic Governor Mark Warner came in and made some hard decisions, but he got the state back on track and very well-managed again.  This is because he's not an ideologue.  He doesn't go around saying taxes are bad so we shouldn't have taxes.  That idea is simple-minded. 

McDonnell is just a cooler, better-looking, slicker version of Gilmore.  He ran as a moderate, but those who are familiar with his record know he shows signs of zealotry.  We'll see how pragmatic he really is.  I hope I'm wrong and that he really is a pragmatist, but his record belies that hope.  We'll just see what kind of shape this state is in when the big zero shows up for our highway/infrastructure funding in the next two years.  A couple of years ago we had a chance to fund this deficiency, but the anti-tax crowd revved up the rhetoric and shot the whole state in the foot.  We're not going to be very attractive to businesses with a crumbling infrastructure, and our citizens are increasingly endangered every day.  Northern Virginia is the engine which drives the whole state's economy and we're on the verge of a catastrophic failure of our transportation system.

As long as he's the right kind of zealot...