In my earlier post, I mentioned some consultants who should never work in politics again. I’m not generally one to name names, but since he’s been outed, David Petts is one of those guys.
Told by Petts that his convincing primary win positioned him well with the Democratic base – core Democrats, northern Virginians and African-Americans – Deeds was advised: “The battleground now appears to be for independents outside the DC media market.”
This is what led to the misguided plan to ignore the base, a mistake of epic proportions and probably the largest contributor to the size of the loss. Petts should have known better – it’s not the first time he’s worked in Virginia politics. He should have recognized that the voters in a primary are not the same group in the general and the need to reach out to base voters who didn’t vote in the primary was critical.
But, to be honest, I agreed with Petts’ assessment of the possible need for the Democratic nominee to distance himself from Obama and said so in this post. But the presence of the OFA organizers made that near impossible.
Petts says now that the campaign lost its grip on northern Virginia over the summer, when Democrats nationally took a hit in part as a result of the healthcare debate and raucous town halls.
That’s why I asked the DNC to remove those organizers here. Send them to one of the 48 states that didn’t have a gubernatorial election. Nationalizing this election was about the worst thing that could happen to Democrats in Virginia. But even with them here, the campaign should have adjusted its strategy and gone after voters in NoVA. That it didn’t happen is indicative of how much faith the campaign put into that June memo.
There’s a whole lot of blame to go around. And some of it should rightly be placed on Petts.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Pardon my ignorance but can you remind who OFA is?
Organizing for America. Obama’s grass-roots group.
The problem was not the presence of OFA volunteers (I’ve seen two on a single day in July). The problem is the absence of Deeds volunteers: I never saw any. I attend a lot of festivals and events around Richmond, and I never saw a single Deeds supporter handing out literature, balloons, yard signs, bumper stickers, or lapel stickers.
OFA was a problem here. They sucked up our volunteers like crazy.
Deeds was a poor candidate who only talked about something that Bob McDonnell wrote 20 years ago instead of telling voters what his plans were for Va.Even several tax payer funded trips to Va from Obama himself couldn’t help Deeds if the truth be told Obama helped Bob McDonnell energize his base more that he helped Deeds energize his base.
Deeds never gave his base a reason to go vote for him, got too negative in the beginning and didn’t hire local folks. ALSO, Republicans played in our primary, (we NEVER should have held a primary, go into the smoke filled room and slug it out in a caucus or convention!)
And his not reaching out to the base and going negative was a direct result of what the pollster told him.
I don’t agree with a caucus or a convention. Yes, I know the Rs play in our primaries, but so far, I’ve not seen anything that says they swing the balance.
When you get 5.65% turnout for the primaries, you can hardly blame Republicans for the outcome.
Silver Donkey you are so right i have asked several Democrats did they ever wonder how Deeds won the primary and you are the first one that has been able to answer that question correctly.Alot of Republicans voted for Deeds in the primary they felt he was the weakest candidate and wouldn’t be able to raise the money the other two would have.As far as the thesis goes it was a brilliant idea of Bob McDonnell to bring it up to get the Democrats off of any positive message and it worked perfect like Bob McDonnell or not he is a very smart man.
Every Republican I talked to did not want Deeds as an opponent. They were afraid – after the 2005 result – that he would be the toughest to beat.
I’m convinced that two things contributed to Deeds’ primary win. First, the primary voters themselves. They tend to be older, long-time Democratic voters. They are more likely to be loyal to someone who has served the party for a significant period of time.
Second, the negativity of Moran drove up his negatives as well as those of McAuliffe. So folks felt both of them were damaged goods and shifted their support to Deeds.
As I have said before, I really did think Deeds was the most likely Democrat to beat McDonnell. I voted for Deeds because I thought he was the most palatable of the Democrats.
Furthermore, there was no primary in the AG race, yet the Republican crushed the Democrat in that race, too.
The real lesson of this race is, in my mind, that when Republicans nominate conservatives, they win.
Oh, I’m not sure you can make that case, ie, conservatives win. Especially with the “play to the middle” way that the Republicans ran.
The real lesson of this race, IMHO, is that given the choice between R and R-lite, the voters generally choose the real thing.
Vivian im not saying you are wrong i just know of several Republicans that voted for Deeds in the primary because they didn’t think he could win or raise money like the other two could have.
Oh I’m sure there were a number of reasons why Republicans voted in our primary, including the one you mention. I just wanted to pass on what I heard.
Who did you think was the strongest candidate in the primary for the general election ?
I thought Moran (pre-negativity) was the strongest candidate. He certainly wouldn’t have had any trouble firing up the base 😉
I doubt that the person who remarked about Republican participation in the open primary recalls the plentiful research on the subject, or has exit polls or survey data to substantiate the claim of, “a lot of Republicans voted” in the open primary.
This has been researched and debated for decades and we always get the same result: Open primaries do receive some participation by a small percentage of those who wish to elect a weaker candidate, but their participation is of minor consequence, or backfires, such as the California Democrats pushing for the election of Ronald Reagan for Governor, because they thought he would be easy to beat.
The case for open primaries is much stronger, since it promotes the election of candidates with a more broad appeal, since open primaries attract all types of voters, albeit in relatively small numbers. The candidates in the primary all most moderate their pitch to appeal to many of the same folks who will vote for them in the general election.
I am not convinced that anyone with a D next to their name could have won last Tuesday, given the general fear and uncertainty among our general population.
A lot of Rs I know won’t vote in D primaries because they don’t want it in their voting records. So I agree, the number is small.
And I agree on primaries.
Vivian and the rest of you Dems, just don’t get it, stop trying to find an excuse on why your candidate lost! Deeds was a poor candidate from the beginning, the voters chose the best option, for the right reasons. I would be a offended if I was part of the Dem base, you are basically saying your base couldn’t make a decision because they didn’t have local volunteers, you must think they are really stupid. Maybe they didn’t vote for Deeds, because he didn’t offer real solutions, give them some credit, geez!!
Try not to be so simple-minded, rlewis. There are a number of factors that contributed to Deeds’ loss – not just the fact that Deeds wasn’t the perfect candidate. This post and others are about some of those other factors.
And look before you leap: no one said anything about the base not making a decision because of the lack of local volunteers.
The voters who voted chose McDonnell. The issue of this post is why so many Democrats stayed at home.
You keep blaming Deeds, yet Democrats lost down-ticket, too — and badly. Meanwhile, four years ago, Kaine(D) won by nearly 6%, Bolling(R) won by just over 1%, and McDonnell(R) won in a virtual dead heat. Virginians are quite willing to split their votes.
This year, however, ALL of the Democrats running state-wide were smashed — beaten by over 10% of the vote. That cannot be put on the candidates alone.
I’m a Democrat and I voted. I was lukewarm on Deeds. I was underwhelmed with him once he said he was not an Obama democrat. I am presently underwhelmed by the rest of my democratic representation in the House and Senate. Can’t imagine voting for anyone with an R after their name.
I might be wrong, but the whole graduate thesis doesnt seems to me as reaching to independents outside the DC market…
I would caution everyone who is so critical of this consultant or that tactic to remember this about modern Virginia politics:
Outside of Mark Warner, Virginians don’t treat statewide losers well the second time around: Deeds follows Dolan, Henry Howell, Marshall Coleman, Jay Katzen, Virgil Goode (I believe the man ran 2 unsuccessful races for Senate as a Democrat) and Wyatt Durette as losers of one statewide campaign who came back and lost their second go-round as well. In a lot of states, the exact opposite is true. You have to run and lose once to build name recognition and a network. In Virginia, our losers are not treated well by voters.
A comment in May sticks in my mind. I talked to a long-time Democrat about the primary. He told me he wouldn’t vote for Deeds in the primary because Deeds had already lost to McDonnell. There was a lot of wisdom in that simple statement that Democrats should have thought about.