Creigh Deeds ran as a 'blue dog'.

[iceman66]

A REAL Democrat would have done better.

'Nuff said.

[skipos]

1. IMO, a Russ Feignold would have done better, but not a Kucinich

The formula isn't always "a real democrat/ progressive will do better." Campaigns count.

[OHdem10]

2. Exactly---We are in a time of NO Fakes. McDonnell was the Republican

A real Democrat with confidence in themselves could have made
it a real race.

[iceman66]

3. My point exactly.

Did Deeds really expect to motivate all those new Obama voters by vowing to 'opt out' of a public option?

[woo me with science]

4. People didn't know what kind of dog he was.

All he did was talk about McDonnell's thesis. Nobody knew what he stood for, so they accepted McDonnell's framing of him as a tax raiser.

He ran a terrible campaign.

[joeybee12]

5. "Terrible" is a polite way of putting it, IMHO...n/t