McDonnell’s unenviable position in this race.
Jeff Schapiro, as a part of a longer Richmond Times-Dispatch piece about the troubles faced by Bob McDonnell, makes this notable point, among others:
For a party in almost nonstop retreat since 2001, the Virginia GOP shows no sign of retreating from the well-right-of-center orthodoxy that has left it defensive and depleted its bench.
Why would the party stick with a losing formula? Because the rank-and-file demands it, and because there is genuine optimism McDonnell can win despite it.
Read through the whole piece to get Schapiro’s sense of the uphill battle that McDonnell has.
Right now, McDonnell is positioned to come in five points behind Creigh Deeds. (Rasmussen, I see, confirms this, giving Deeds 47% to McDonnell’s 41%, with lots of undecided Republicans and few undecided Democrats.) Virginia has come a long way in four years, uniformly in ways that benefit Deeds. A lot can and will happen between now and November, but I just don’t buy the conventional wisdom that McDonnell’s got the edge. This one is Deeds’ to lose.
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