Amidst the initial blogospasm over Jody Wagner’s trouble with numbers (see Riley at VV, Brian at BD, and Crystal Clear Conservative for that hilarity), one fact largely missed was that Wagner failed geography in the presser as badly as she messed up the math.

See, whether she was planning on visiting six, seven, or “seven six” counties, Wagner only visited three (Wythe, Pulaski, and Montgomery).  Bristol, Roanoke, and Salem are all independent cities (even commenter “Chipper Jones” – who noticed the presence of cities in the list of “counties” in the BD comments section – missed a city).

While I myself have only been through Southwest Virginia once, I doubt they’ll be too thrilled about a candidate who can’t tell their cities and counties apart.

Then again, my preferred candidate for Lieutenant Governor doesn’t have that problem.

If you are a governor, chances are you won’t be thrilled when a blog is tracking your trips outside the state and calling you on the carpet for violating your promise to do a second job only on weekends and evenings.  Still, it comes with the territory, and you should be able to handle it.

If, however, you are the governor of Virginia, the blog is from the Washington Post, and you are a Democrat, then you have a big problem.

Public Policy Polling – a polling group that caters heavily to Democrats for clients – has a new poll on Virginia.

The good news: Bob McDonnell leads Creigh Deeds 49-43.  To quote PPP head Dean Debman (via Riley at VV): “Several polls conducted immediately after the primary had shown Deeds moving into the lead but it appears his bounce has worn off” (emphasis added).  PPP tries to show some silver lining for Deeds.

There is some good news for Deeds in the results. He currently leads just 68-16 among African Americans but Democrats often under poll in that demographic this far out from an election and end up doing better at the ballot box. Also, there are more undecided Democrats than Republicans, giving him room to grow.

There’s just one problem: McDonnell is already at 49%; he doesn’t need to “grow” much to put this away.  Moreover, while 16% of the African-American vote may seem high for a Republican, it’s the norm for Republicans in Virginia (Allen and Gilmore hit 17% in their races for Governor – 1993 and 1997, respectively).

Better news: Despite going through a nearly year-long convention battle, Ken Cuccinelli leads Steve Shannon by seven points (45%-38%).  PPP gave no details on that, though.

Not sure what this means: Lieutenant-Governor Bill Bolling leads Jody Wagner 46% to 40%. Normally, an incumbent needs to be at 50% to feel good about his or her chances. However, an incumbent who is number-two on his own ticket is very rare. A number of LGs run on joint-tickets with the nominee above (i.e., like the President and Vice President, or the New Jersey Guv-LG tickets), so it’s difficult to guage how well (or even if) the normal rules of incumbency apply.  Also, Virginia hasn’t seen any LG run for re-election in sixteen years; only one has run for a second term in the last half-century (Don Beyer in 1993).  On balance, I’d say Bolling should be happy.

In other words, with four months to go, the Republicans in Virginia have the advantage in all three races.  Sure, they were here before in 2005, but it still beats the alternative.

UPDATE: As you can probably tell by now, the details are now part of the PPP release.  Among the interesting nuggets:

• All three Republicans are at 38% in Northern Virginia (703), but Shannon (the local Dem) is weakest at 48% – likely a reaction to his opponent (Cuccinelli) also being local.
• Bolling is the only Republican ahead in Southwest Virginia (276)- although I suspect Cuccinelli can make up some ground here (not sure about McDonnell – given Creigh Deeds’ roots in the western part of the state – although Bath County is not in SWVA).
• Jody Wagner only runs even in Hampton Roads (757) despite being from there.
• The most Republican area code (the only one where all three candidates lead by double digits) is 540, which stretches out to the west but is anchored in population by the Fredericksburg area (where yours truly calls home)

Nothing ground breaking – especially with regional samples this small, but interesting.

Despite the Mark Sanford silliness and the kerfuffle over Governor Palin’s resignation, the GOP held on to its Congressional ballot lead (Rasmussen).

If the editors of the Washington Post intend to issue their usual endorsement of Virginia Democrats this fall, they’re pulling one heck of a misdirection.  Just over a month after they warmly endorsed Creigh Deeds to be nominated by the Democrats, they criticize him (justifiably) for his weakness on educational choice and praise Bob McDonnell for his “full-throated support of charter schools.”  They even go so far as to label McDonnell’s “favoring ways to give parents more of a choice in their children’s schooling” as “reform-minded” (typical center-left reaction to educational choice is to go into apoplexy).

I agree with TQ Norm’s skepticism about the Post actually going for McDonnell (the paper hasn’t endorsed a statewide Republican for office since Mark Earler’y AG race in 1997), but it will certainly make any Post endorsement for the Democrats much weaker.

The quasi-official newspaper of the national capital’s elite dropped the quasi (and all pretense of ever speaking truth to power, as it were) with this bombshell (Politico):

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff.”

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival. 

Among other things, this offer basically makes the Post dependent upon the Administration (and other politicians) for revenue.  Keep that in mind any time you read the Post – especially if the paper and the politicians go through with this.

For a while, I actually thought the Post would be one of the few newspapers to survive, but this could easily kill it.

UPDATE: Apparently, the news department of the Post has put the kibosh on any reporters showing up for this little farce (Politics Daily), which is fine as far as it goes, but it still doesn’t absolve the paper from being dependent upon the people it is covering for revenue and profit.  Thus, the ethical storm cloud does not go away.

FURTHER UPDATE: Never mind, the Post has wisely chosen to drop the whole thing , but that they were even willing to consider it is a terrible stain on the paper.

Rasmussen has the details. Keep in mind the time-frame for this survey (June 12-28) encompassed both the Ensign and Sanford scandals.

Truth be told, the lead has changed hands four times since March, so effectively the parties are even, but that’s a dramatic change from the nine-point edge the Democrats had on Election Day 2008.

A recent tradition has arisen on the pages of the Washington Post. In order to counteract their continuing refusal to abandon reason on international affairs, they have routinely lambasted Republicans in Virgina.  The addition of a local GOP endorsement led me to believe that the “balance” required would be massive.

Turns out that even the Post’s need for balance couldn’t get the paper past Criegh Deeds’ massive tax-hike record.

Here’s what Rosalind Helderman had to say about the Senator from Give-the-taxpayer-a-Bath County:

For instance, since 2004, Deeds has supported five proposals that included some form of increase in the gas tax . . . One of those bills would have raised that tax by 5 cents a gallon over five years — it was proposed in 2008, when gas prices were rising. Another proposal from 2008 would have combined a boosted gas tax with a 25-cent increase in the sales tax and a 0.5 percent increase in the sales tax on cars.

Now, to be fair, Deeds states that the tax increases were for transportation (that was the part ellipsed out) – which would be more convincing if Deeds had called Mark Warner on the carpet for gutting the transportation budget in 2002, or if he (Deeds) had spoken up for the Republican plan to tie transportation funding to economic activity during last year and this.

Instead, he played the game Democrats play – fund everything else (including non-essentials) first, then demand a tax increase for transportation because it’s the spending Republicans are most likely to support.

The Democrats (Deeds especially) are pretty good at this game, but it’s a game nonetheless, and one that Virginians lost until it stops.  At the end of the day, as Riley at VV states so well:

Let it ring out throughout the Commonwealth — Creigh Deeds is a tax hiker. He’s done it before and if history is any sort of guide, he would most certainly do it again. Especially in these tough economic times, Virginia can’t afford to have someone as reckless on taxes and spending as Deeds is as our Governor.

Exactly.

. . . apparently the Dems still haven’t gotten enough votes to get the cap-and-trade fiasco out of the House of Representatives (Connie Hair of Human Events).

Now, yours truly’s Congressman’s been beating this monstrosity up for days, but Virginia’s 5th District begins about an hour from my house, and I have a few friends who are inflicted with Tom Perriello (Riley at VV).

Lest anyone forget, the United States is not the greatest carbon emitter on the planet.  Communist China passed us a couple of years ago, and the CCP shows no signs of slowing down.

So, dear reader, if your member of Congress happens to be on this list (AFP), give them a call or shoot them an email; let them know what a disaster this really is.

Namely, replace Jon Corzine with Tim Kaine (Los Angeles Times).