There is little doubt Democrats are riding a wave of success in Virginia, one that began in 2001 with the election of Mark Warner as Governor and which crested, most recently, with the party’s 2007 General Assembly gains.
While a wave can give you a great ride, however, it can also knock you over. And getting out of the way of some of the turbulence of that wave might explain why Democratic State Senator Creigh Deeds, whose hulking district includes Charlottesville and much of Albemarle, took the unusual step of announcing his run for Governor nearly two full years before the 2009 election.
In fact, given how unusual it is, Deeds’ explanation of his timing has arguably been oblique. Deeds, for example, explained his early announcement by saying he wanted to eliminate any confusion over whether he would run for governor, but given that Deeds’ run was widely expected, that explanation seemed to explain little.
"There certainly wasn’t any doubt on my part," Deeds says, "but there certainly were some people who weren’t sure until I made the announcement whether I was going to run for governor or attorney general. I thought it was important for me to dispel any doubt that this is what my intention is."
Deeds doesn’t specify which doubts he was responding to, but there had been growing chatter recently among some Democrats—at least as reflected on several of the state’s Democratic-leaning blogs—suggesting that Deeds ought to run for attorney general rather than governor so that the party could avoid a potentially divisive primary contest between him and Delegate Brian Moran of Alexandria. Moran has not yet declared he is a candidate, but he and Deeds are considered the leading Democratic contenders.
In this context, Deeds’ early announcement could be interpreted as an effort to kill any such speculation before it could gain any currency, especially given Moran’s strength in Northern Virginia.
As things stand now, the potential Deeds versus Moran primary will likely hinge on the issue of which candidate would fare better in the general election. It also mirrors the political and cultural rift between Northern Virginia and the rest of the state, which tends to be more socially conservative and rural in character.
With that in mind, population gains in Northern Virginia, which clearly helped drive the Democrats’ General Assembly gains last year, make the logic of a Moran candidacy numerically compelling. "Northern Virginia voters know Brian Moran and will turn out in large numbers if he chooses to run," a Moran spokesman recently told The Washington Post.
Deeds, who is from Bath County, maintains that as a "middle-of-the-road guy from rural Virginia," he’ll have wider appeal in the general election than Moran. Virginia, Deeds notes, is still a "right-of-center" state, despite its "purpling up." But Deeds is not oblivious to the obvious importance of Northern Virginia in any political calculus for the Democrats, and he says a benefit of his early announcement is that it gives him an opportunity to gain name recognition in Northern Virginia, where it’s "harder to get people’s attention."
"I think it was important for me to make the statement early in some regard because my home is Bath County," Deeds says. "I don’t have a huge population base. …To some extent, because I live out in the country, because of where I’m from, I’m going to have to shout a little bit louder."
 State Senator Creigh Deeds officially announced his gubernatorial intentions two years before the election, perhaps to show the Dems that he won’t settle for another shot at attorney general. Deeds maintains that as a "middle-of-the-road guy from rural Virginia," he’ll have wider appeal in the general election than Brian Moran of Alexandria. |
As for strategic disadvantages resulting from his early announcement, Deeds says, "you could make the case that you run the risk you’re going to peak too early, or people are going to lose interest in what you’re doing."
"But," he says, "that’s not my plan at all." He adds, "The announcement changes nothing about my campaign. It changes nothing about what I do," further supporting the view that immediate political concerns, rather than an overarching strategy, drove the timing of his announcement.
This article was amended on December 31, 2007: The original version included a photograph, now removed, that incorrectly identified Jim Moran as Brian Moran.
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