It didn’t take long for the “moderate” label to fall on Creigh Deeds – or, to be more accurate, to be draped over him like a superhero cape (the Washington Post even goes so far as to call him “moderate to conservative.” Even my good friend Leslie Carbone fell for it (although given the enormous effort she’s put into Slaying the Leviathon Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform - whoops! Sorry Leslie – I’ll just chalk it up to exhaustion).
On the surface, the label appears apt: Deeds is the first gubernatorial candidate nominated by the Democrats without a northern accent since Mary Sue Terry in 1993. His home county is a place that even leading bloggers in his State Senate District couldn’t find on a map without help (as Dub-J himself admitted). Finally, there is that NRA endorsement from 2005.
Still, take away the southern drawl and the rural hometown, and what you get is not a moderate (let alone “moderate to conservative”) but a garden-variety leftist Democrat who just happens to be comfortable with firearms.
In other words: Creigh Deeds is Jimmy Carter 2.0.
This will likely come as a surprise to some western readers and bloggers (and a shock to the Democrats among them) in part because the political definitions are so different. I’ve been harping about the divide between Western and Eastern Virginia for a while now, but there is no better example of that than the career of Creigh Deeds.
Thanks to the overemphasis on social issues in the west, Deeds has been able to use his gun-rights past to camouflage the rest of his record. Among Democrats, nearly anyone who has ever opposed him as done so on this one issue – and from the left, further embellishing Deeds faux moderate credentials.
However, here in the East, its economic issues that drive the train, and what has aided Democrats over the last eight years has not been their clever campaigns on social issues (Warner 2001 being the classic example), but the Republicans’ weakness on taxes and spending.
Take a look at the two elections again. Mark Warner had never supported a single tax increase before he ran for Governor in 2001; thus he could claim he wouldn’t raise taxes with a straight face. Four years later, Tim Kaine – shorn of Warner’s gun-rights-based appeal to the Southwest and running against an actual southwestern candidate – took notice of Jerry Kilgore’s refusal to rule out tax increases and told all of eastern Virginia that he (Kilgore) would raise their taxes if elected. Kilgore never responded, and the rest is history.
In other words, what has won elections for the Democrats in this state is their ability to peel off low-tax/limited-government supporters who are not happy with the GOP and considered the Dems a decent alternative.
Can Creigh Deeds do that? No way. Creigh Deeds has never met a tax he wouldn’t hike. As I mentioned earlier, the man is one of the most prolific tax-hikers in Richmond. Again, this might not mean much in western Virginia, but here in the east, it will sink him like a lead balloon.
Yes, I know Deeds came close to winning the AG race four years ago, but that office itself is the most social-issue-heavy of the three. Moreover, much of Deeds’ tax-hiking record was still in the future in 2005, but it’s all in black and white now (Mason Conservative).
In fact, I would humbly submit it was this tax-hiking record – not the false moderate reputation – that gave Deeds his primary win. Without the Washington Post endorsement of Deeds, odds are Terry McAuliffe wins this race. The WaPo endorsement dramatically changed the dynamic. So why did the paper back him? Well, read on (WaPo):
Both Mr. Deeds and Mr. Moran supported the plan of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D), ultimately gutted by the state Supreme Court, to generate millions in transportation funding (RWL Note: that’s HB3202).Last year, however, as both candidates were laying the groundwork for their campaigns, Mr. Deeds courageously voted for a proposal that included raising the state’s gas tax, unchanged since 1986; Mr. Moran helped kill the bill by opposing it in committee. (Mr. McAuliffe says that he’s not opposed to raising revenue for roads, but as with every other state issue, he has no record.)
In other words, Creigh Deeds won the WaPo endorsement, and the momentum it generated, and the nomination the momentum garnered, because he was the biggest tax-and-spend lefty in the field. That’s how eastern Virginia Democrats saw him.
Once the rest of the east sees that (and with the GOP having recovered from its tax-hike fever) Deeds will be in very big trouble, and the folks who are trumpeting him as a “moderate” will have a lot of egg on their faces (figuratively speaking).
Thanks, Deej. In all seriousness, I appreciate the effort and sincerity with which you approach this issue and others. (Hey, that’s just one of many reasons why I’m supporting your supervisor bid!). But the point of my post is that Democrats in Virginia have hit upon the strategy of running candidates who position themselves as being more conservative than the rest of their party, while encouraging Republicans to lurch leftward. Their motives for doing so should be obvious. Thanks again for all your hard work and most of all for engaging on the level of reasoned, fact-based discourse. Oh, and the name of my book is “Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform”.
I actually mistitled the book. Brilliant! Sorry about that, Leslie, it’s been fixed.
True, the Dems have been looking for “centrist” candidates for a while, now, especially here in VA. My point was that they missed with this guy, that’s all.
And of course, thanks so much for your support. It means a lot coming from you.
Good analogy, DJ. I linked and will work it from the angle of a taxpayer from the western part of Virginia.
His home county is a place that even leading bloggers in his State Senate District couldn’t find on a map without help (as Dub-J himself admitted).
That’s both wrong and not what I wrote. I was writing about November 2001, some eight years ago now. There were no “leading bloggers in his State Senate District” then, because there were no political bloggers (period). Redistricting had just taken place, and many people in Charlottesville were surprised to find themselves in a district that ran clear to West Virginia, since the 25th lumps together Charlottesville with a part of the state with which the city has no connection whatsoever. Many years have passed, the political world is very different, and like any politically-interested Virginian worth their salt, I know well where Bath is. I’ve been all around Bath and the surrounding counties, visiting Blue Grass, Possum Trot, Hightown, Warm Springs and Hot Springs.
Eaaaasy, Waldo. My point was you didn’t know where Bath was when you first heard of it. Hence “couldn’t” rather than “can’t”.
“Tim Kaine … took notice of Jerry Kilgore’s refusal to rule out tax increases and told all of eastern Virginia that he (Kilgore) would raise their taxes if elected. Kilgore never responded, and the rest is history.”
Huh. This is an interesting revision of what most all of us accepted at the time as being the reasons for Kaine’s victory over Kilgore. Taxes, huh? I seem to recall people being pretty mad at Jerry Kilgore for appearing to attack Tim Kaine’s faith as a Catholic in the final week, and Tim responded in a very polite, yet firm way that really impressed people.
Also Jerry Kilgore sounds really gay. Yeah, lets not bury that. His voice sounded like ‘Big Gay Al’ from South Park.
As for whether Creigh is a moderate, you’ve illustrated really nicely that he is. You demonstrate issues on which he has taken liberal stances and then others on which he has taken conservative stances; in none of which has he been particularly radical in one direction or another.
That is almost a textbook definition of a political moderate. I think the reality is that Creigh is a moderate but you would prefer a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. And that’s ok. Your problem is that you are falling into the trap of being convinced that being a ‘moderate’ is the epitome of political perfection, thus you are trying to argue something that makes very little sense in order to make your dislike of Creigh jive with having swallowed the CW on moderation. Instead, face up to the fact that Creigh is a moderate and that you want a hard-core right-wing conservative for Governor.
The minute you back off of that, you back away from standing up for what you really believe in. Go ahead, stand up for conservatism and don’t be afraid to attack the moderation that I suspect you really detest.
Jackson,
I’m not surprised that another westerner seemed not to notice the dynamics of the 2005 races in eastern Virginia. It is yet another example of the division in this state that I wish more people would acknowledge. Kilgore’s attempt to focus on the death penalty did him no favors, to be sure, but it was Kaine’s ability to hammer him on the tax issue that sank him (Kilgore) in eastern VA.
As for Deeds, the point I was trying to make (and you deliberately missed) is that over here, economic issues have more impact on the political spectrum than out there. It’s why Emmett Hanger is never considered a conservative (tax hikes) and why Creigh Deeds isn’t a moderate (even more tax hikes). Please note, again, that it was Deeds’ lefty record on taxes that led to the Post’s endorsement, not his supposed centrism on social issues.
I will freely admit I prefer conservatives to moderates (although as you can see from the blog title, I have issues with both labels), but that doesn’t change the fact that Creigh Deeds is neither.
“appearing to attack Tim Kaine’s faith as a Catholic”
Interesting, since all I’ve seen from Democrats are attacks about Bob McDonnell’s faith.
[...] Deeds is no moderate The right-wing liberal Still, take away the southern drawl and the rural hometown, and what you get is not a moderate (let [...]
Kaine most certainly did claim that Kilgore would raise taxes and Kaine would not. He did so in the televised debate that should still be available on the web. Of course, Kaine raised taxes, which means his promise was false, but whatever it takes to win seems to be the order of the day for the party of Obama.
Deeds has said he is the most progressive of the democratic candidates. His issues page shows him to be a progressive. Even on social issues, he is not a moderate — he now supports partial birth abortion, closing the so-called “gun show loophole”, he supports restrictions on citizens to carry guns to defend themselves against attacks like that on the Virginia Tech campus, and he opposed the gay marriage amendment.
On what issue is he “conservative”? He is a tax-and-spend liberal, he supports the national liberal democratic agenda, his support for “health care for all” is right out of the socialist wing of his party. He won’t get the NRA endorsement this time.
[...] (the largely unknown State Senator who won the NRA endorsement) rather than the 2009 Deeds (one of the biggest tax-hikers in Richmond who has since told the NRA to stuff it – Bearing [...]
[...] I wandered by The right-wing liberal. In Creigh Deeds is no moderate, DJ McGuire counters The Washington Post’s efforts to label Creigh Deeds, the Democratic [...]
[...] The Warnerese-English translator has picked up McAuliffese!! Terry McAuliffe was the only Democrat running for Governor of Virginia who was smart enough to notice this is a terrible time to raise taxes. Naturally, the primary voters sent him packing in favor of the tax-hiking Creigh Deeds. [...]