Democratic Candidate for VA Governor Creigh Deeds says he’d consider opting Virginia out of any Federal health care solution including a public option.

Now, I’m going to vote for the guy, because, hey, the alternative says that working women and feminists (not to mention cohabitators, “fornicators”, homosexuals and contraception) are a blight on society – what other choice do I have, really?

However, if Deeds (who I believe generally has his head and heart in the right place on most issues, even if I recognize he will always be to the right of me ideologically) is really serious about opposing useful health care reform (including a public option, which, at the very least, keep profit-motivated insurance firms in check), I’m not going to be particularly enthusiastic about it.

I’m honestly not getting a warm fuzzy on the Democrats’ chances here in VA this year; polls have McDonnell consistently up by not quite ten – he’s successfully playing to his conservative fundamentalist Christian base, and there are quite a few of those folks around here. Deeds, however, seems to be not trying terribly hard – he’s hit a couple of nice liberal social notes here and there, but his general strategy appears to be “run to the right and don’t alienate the undecided 15%”. This doesn’t really work, it’s the whole “republican vs. republican-lite” thing, and he and his campaign staff ought to know better.

Warner (and Kaine riding coattails) won by selling good, non-partisan management skills and not coming off as completely clueless on rural issues. Deeds has the rural thing down (he’s not faking it, after all), but hasn’t sold himself as a good manager, and has it in his head that he’ll peel off a few undecideds by not appearing particularly controversial, and occasionally pissing off the base* to look non-beholden. However, breaking with Obama on his signature issue by taking a big, public dump on it doesn’t gain Deeds anything, except perhaps the ire of all those not-previously-engaged ’08 Obama voters, who to this point, have probably been keeping the margin so close.

McDonnell, on the other hand, has been bleating dog-whistle conservative claptrap from the rooftops (i.e. – standard procedure for his party). In that sort of environment, undecided voters (those who actually vote at all, anyway) are going to swing to the guy who makes some noise, no matter the content.

This isn’t to say that I wouldn’t be happy with a Deeds win – I REALLY REALLY WOULD. But, I’m not expecting it at this point (though things could always shift in the next two weeks). I don’t really think many others are, either. It says something when the reasonably popular President hasn’t (so far) made plans to do any events with his party’s candidate in one of two Governor’s races this year in a state (that he won by a decent margin) that’s only a few minutes’ drive from the White House (edit – He’s just announced he is making an appearance; this is somewhat encouraging)

I hope I’m wrong.

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* -Seriously, when are politicians going to learn that the “Maverick” position hasn’t really worked on a large scale since TR, and even Teddy lost when he did the Bull Moose thing in 1912.