Larry Sabato, who considers himself quite the political pundit, first tweeted then went on record as saying that the Deeds campaign was shaking up its staff. In particular, Sabato wrote:
Thirty-something wunderkind Joe Abbey, Deeds’ manager for his upset June primary victory, has been shunted aside.
Sabato was wrong. (Surprise!)
The campaign held a conference call Friday afternoon with press and bloggers. Speaking on behalf of the campaign were the very same Joe Abbey and Mo Elleithee. I managed to get in a question, specifically about this. Here’s the audio of that portion of the call.
Will anyone ever trust Larry Sabato again?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Dunno, Vivian…
Abbey may still have the title, but it’s pretty clear from the WaPo article that the direction of the campaign has clearly been taken out of his hands.
To be fair though, it’s not as if Phil Cox is a one-man-show either. Still, the circumstances surrounding the Rebel Yelp were evidence of poor judgment and grasping at straws, unfortunately.
Things will settle. Abbey has proven himself to be an asset — the question will be whether or not he is drowned out by all this old McAuliffe staff being brought on.
Not sure what WaPo article you are referring to.
This doesn’t look as cut and dried as you make it out to be, Vivian. What Abbey did was exceptionally stupid. If Sen. Deeds doesn’t question Abbey’s judgment, then his own judgment is suspect. I’ll bet that Abbey’s influence and power w/in the campaign are more limited now.
This has nothing to do with the tweet. This is totally focused on the claim by Larry Sabato that Abbey was no longer campaign manager.
I guess that what I’m saying is that I wonder if Abbey is still the campaign manager in more than name.