A better Major-General had never sat a gee.

There’s a temptation, post-election, for pundits and activists to convince themselves (ourselves) that all of the signs of the result were there. Sometimes we believe that we had the wisdom to interpret them correctly in advance, sometimes we wonder how we didn’t spot them.

I’d like to say right now that I have no idea at all of who will win the statewide races tomorrow. Today’s SUSA poll notwithstanding, there is nobody who could win tomorrow that would surprise me. With the obvious exception of Sen. Russ Potts. I am not smart enough to offer a prognostication of what results will be delivered from on high in a day and a half.

Instead, I present a tally of what the two gubernatorial candidates have done right, and what they’ve done wrong, at least to my external, non-expert estimation. Of course, I like Tim Kaine and his campaign, and I’m not fond of Jerry Kilgore (who I’ve never met, incidentally) or his platform, so I’m inclined to see sweetness and light in the Kaine campaign and gloom and doom in the Kilgore campaign. Accordingly, I have more criticisms for Kilgore and more kudos for Kaine.

What the Kaine Campaign Has Done Right

• Staying positive. After Kilgore’s “Hitler” ad was unveiled, I insisted that the Kaine campaign had to hit back even harder, describing the campaign as a “knife fight” in which “the last man standing wins.” The Kaine campaign stubbornly refused to respond in kind, airing a defensive ad listing the editorial boards around the state that had condemned the ad (every major paper in the state). I wrote that I didn’t know if the ad did Kaine much good, though conceded that the campaign had the benefit of polling, whereas I didn’t, concluding that “I can only hope their current tack is based on some solid research.” The universe in which Kaine hit back hard is not this one — maybe doing so would have paid huge dividends, maybe it would have failed. Instead, the Kaine campaign exposed the Kilgore campaign’s nasty tactics to a wider audience, and it worked — Kaine’s ranking spiked in every poll immediately after the “Hitler” ads started airing. The Kaine campaign’s tack was right, and they deserve a lot of credit for taking the path that was both successful and unpopular among the campaign’s supporters.
• Good staff. Yes, the Kaine campaign has some resume-padding campaign monkeys, but the overwhelming majority of the staff with whom I interfaced was qualified, capable, and motivated. Emblematic of this is the employee with whom I stayed in the most regular contact, John Rohrbach, did an excellent job of coordinating with Democratic bloggers. He never stepped over the line to making blogs mere puppets of the campaign — we were treated as media, albeit with a separate handler. Which leads me to my next point.
• Open to bloggers. The Kaine campaign has understood and related to bloggers. They get it. Between the Barack Obama event and the conference call that Kaine held with Democratic and Republican bloggers, the campaign made themselves open to bloggers, but never used bloggers or treated us as mouthpieces.
• Kept the campaign in-state. In the first months of this year, the Kilgore campaign desperately tried to affix the label “Hollywood liberal elite” to Kaine. It was ridiculous, but they tried over and over again. It didn’t stick, in part because the Kaine campaign distanced themselves from out-of-state interests. He had no support from entertainment celebrities, rode in no limousines, and related stories about his life that presented him as the regular guy that he is.

What the Kaine Campaign Has Done Wrong

• Kaine’s ridiculous stance on abortion and the death penalty. Yeah, I understand it, and it’s logical, but the message being sent to those paying attention is crazy: I’m a man of strong convictions which I will happily abandon in order to become governor. Dude. Now, both Kaine and his campaign get points for not changing his position — there can be no question that this is an honest representation of his beliefs, given that deliberately creating such a stance would be crazy. But, really, wasn’t there some better way to frame this?
• Ineffective use of volunteers early on. It wasn’t until late summer that I was asked to do anything for the Kaine campaign — that was when the kids at the Charlottesville office got good about bugging me to help. (Ironically, I got too busy with blogging about the campaign to spend much time doing anything useful.) This refrain was repeated by the Democratic faithful around the state.
• Ineffective fundraising early on. Many of the obvious large-dollar contributors in the Fifth District — the area of the state that I know best — simply weren’t contacted until quite recently. Some of them were offended that they weren’t asked for money, others aren’t inclined to give unless they’re asked directly and personally. If this district is representative of the rest of the state, then the Kaine campaign missed out on a lot of early money.

What the Kilgore Campaign Has Done Right

• Solid message. While negative, Kilgore’s message was simple and strong. Don’t raise taxes, support the death penalty. It’s straightforward, it’s accessible, and there’s no gray areas to worry about. I don’t know if it was the right message or not, but it’s simple, and there’s a lot to be said for that.
• Staying on message. Whether in the debates or in interviews, listening to Kilgore speak was like listening to an inadequately-programmed robot. He was equipped with several dozen stock phrases (“trust the people,” “can’t trust him on this important issue,” “always have, always will,” etc.), wound up, and marched out to face cameras. Time and time again, he stuck to his script, even when it meant that his responses were a series of non sequiturs that had nothing to do with the question that had been asked. The Kilgore campaign deserves a lot of credit for a consistent, simple message and getting their candidate to stick to it.
• Keeping out of the public eye. The more times that the voting public saw Kilgore speak, the lower his percentage went. Kilgore did a remarkable job of not having his voice broadcast. Both staying out the public eye and running for office are not, it seems, mutually-excusive — Kilgore did a great job of this.

What the Kilgore Campaign Has Done Wrong

• Going negative. The Kilgore campaign was premised on negativity, as a reading of even their earliest press releases and e-mails makes clear. But things didn’t really go downhill until mid-October when, seeking to recover from Kilgore’s third-consecutive disastrous debate performance, they launched the “Hitler” ads. I thought the ads were devastating to Kaine, and I was wrong — their airing began Kilgore’s tumble in the polls. The worst effect of the ad was the one that the Kilgore campaign may not have anticipated — it galvanized Democrats across the nation in support of Kaine. Prior to that attack, nobody was interested — Kaine was seen as Republican Lite by nearly ever prominent Democratic blogger. Post-attack, Kilgore was the enemy. I guarantee that this led to a spike in volunteers and contributions.
• Kilgore is a lousy candidate. Seriously, where did Republicans get this guy from? His resume is weak, he’s a low-energy and unexciting character, and his habit of talking out of one side of mouth makes him look shifty and untrustworthy. (I’m not claiming that Kaine is the greatest thing since sliced bread; the Republicans easily could have run a candidate more personable and charismatic than Kaine. There’s got to be some kind of an interesting story about why they didn’t.) Newspapers across the state have made fun of Kilgore’s effeminate speech using references to Gomer Pyle, Mr. Rogers, Ned Flanders, and Mr. Garrison. He’s never owned a business, he’s not known as a man of strong faith, and he has no record of service, in the military or otherwise.
• Closed to bloggers. At least, their campaign was closed to me — if they were highly effective at working with Republican bloggers, I don’t know about it. They never had a blog, a podcast, or a blogger Q&A session, all of which the Kaine campaign used, to great effect. Maybe doing such would have been harmful to them in some way that I can’t envision, but, from where I’m sitting, it looks like a mistake.
• Ill-planned, totally unfounded attacks. The Kilgore campaign screwed up so badly, so often that the Washington Post‘s Mike Shear wrote an article summarizing three of the most high-profile gaffes. I hope somebody was fired after those embarrassments — that’s the kind of bush-league stuff that I’m certain campaign manager Ken Hutcheson knows better than to let a campaign do. These things made the campaign look bad to the public, but it made it look worse still to the media.
• Attacking the media. After getting thrice burned by the media for their totally-wrong attacks on Kaine and Warner, and then being subject to the extensive media backlash for the “Hitler” ad, the Kilgore campaign made the huge mistake of attacking the press. Kilgore went on NPR and said that the Virginia press is Kaine’s “liberal soulmate,” thus immediately alienating every political reporter in the state. The very reporters that the Kilgore campaign relies on to get their message out. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I’m sure I’ll think of more things in the coming days, and I hope that others will suggest omissions in the comments. As I said, I have a blind spot in the regions of errors by the Kaine campaign and successes by the Kilgore campaign. No doubt some friendly Republican bloggers will help here.