Deeds has opened his HQ in Charlottesville.

It’s symbolic that Sen. Creigh Deeds has opened his campaign headquarters in Charlottesville. While Terry McAuliffe has his HQ in McLean (the city census-designated place whose name I can never manage to pronounce) and Brian Moran has set up in Alexandria, Creigh has chosen to locate his campaign headquarters considerably farther south. Each campaign had to make a decision about where to locate their main office, in part because that location sends a message. You can see pretty clearly what that message is:

McAuliffe and Moran are fighting over the northernmost hundred square miles of Virginia. Deeds is angling for the rest. Now, it’s people who vote, not land; upstate is where the people are at, and I wouldn’t claim otherwise. But the message that McAuliffe and Moran are sending with the locations of their respective headquarters has allowed Deeds to one-up them easily in the 90% of the state that’s closer to Charlottesville than Washington D.C.

Democrats’ political center of gravity in Virginia might be a stone’s throw from Washington D.C., but the state’s is a whole lot farther south.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

12 replies on “Deeds has opened his HQ in Charlottesville.”

  1. Waldo- There’s also a lot of pragmatism in Brian’s choice. He lives in Alexandria, his law office is in Alexandria, and ridiculously close to his house (from the website, it looks like his headquarters is his law office, which has always been his campaign office in the past). It’d be really hard for him to see his family, especially his relatively young kids, and have his main office in Southern Virginia. And I say this as someone totally, completely, utterly in the tank for Creigh.

    However, a quick look at everyone’s websites shows a distinct lack of offices in the southern part of VA from the other two candidates. I don’t disagree with you, and I think the HQ thing is interesting, I’m just not sure any conscious thought regarding reaching out to Southern VA played a role in Brian’s choice of an HQ. Yes, he’s a delegate and should be used to traveling a lot, etc, etc, but it’s probably a hella lot easier on him to just be able to go to his actual house at the end of the day, and keep up with his law office in person.

    I’d argue that Brian’s choice was pragmatic and probably better in the long run, although he definitely needs to get some kind of office going in the C-ville area. (From another angle, he could be trying to hold onto whatever he has in Northern VA that Terry’s trying to get a grip on, and could feel that he has to keep it local with the folks who have been his constituents and clients for years, so they don’t feel snubbed- and they’re the ones who can go to their neighbor and say, “Hey, Brian Moran, that guy who lives next door? The delegate who’s running for governor? You would not believe what he did, and he’s been running his office out of Alexandria for years!” Alexandria is at best, the epitome of the small town gossipy mentality- trust, I grew up there- and I don’t doubt that would happen amongst Alexandria Democrats.)

    As for pronouncing McLean, it’s pronounced like how Evelyn McLean, of Hope Diamond fame (and friends with Mrs. Harding, but not the second Mrs. Wilson, who I’m pretty sure was the one that snubbed her and disinvited her from the White House) would pronounce it. (Ok, I always said “Mc-Lane,” but what do I know?). Also, I’m pretty sure that Mrs. McLean and the census-designated area are of no relation, but whatever.

  2. The message being that they like to work where they live?

    ~

    like how Evelyn McLean, of Hope Diamond fame (and friends with Mrs. Harding, but not the second Mrs. Wilson, who I’m pretty sure was the one that snubbed her and disinvited her from the White House) would pronounce it.

    Let’s see you get all wordy like this come late April.

  3. McLean (the city census-designated place whose name I can never manage to pronounce)

    As long as you can manage not to spell it “McClean” (as even newspapers have been known to do on occasion), you’re ahead of the game.

  4. Charlottesville isn’t exactly close to Bath. :) Covington, Clifton Forge, Lexington, Staunton and Waynesboro are all closer to Bath than C’ville. Besides, candidates spend so little time in their campaign HQs—there aren’t a lot of votes to be won there—that being close to the candidate’s home wouldn’t seem to be a particularly great criterion to use, as evidenced by Creigh’s choice of Charlottesville.

  5. I’ll say this much for Creigh picking Charlottesville – it guarantees that he will never have a shortage of volunteers. The loyalty to Creigh here is amazing. I was at his grand opening the other day and the place was packed elbow to elbow with a who’s-who of Charlottesville Democratic politics.

    Essentially the entire local party establishment looks lined up behind Creigh Deeds and this is a group of people who have run a very well-oiled political machine for the last 20 or 30 years. They all have personal lists of experienced volunteers whom they can roll out for phone-banking and canvasing and anything else necessary.

    Picking Charlottesville as a base of operations was a very wise move for Creigh from an organizational standpoint. Charlottesville’s party leadership knows how to mobilize large numbers of Democrats to the polls and they have proven that in election after election. Cville Dems are going to be Creigh’s secret weapon in this primary.

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