Wilder card

We're electing a governor this fall in the Old Dominion. Today's big news is that former governor and former Richmond mayor Doug Wilder won't endorse fellow Democrat Creigh Deeds. The utterly weird Times-Dispatch editorial writers, conservatives with a long-standing man crush on Wilder, say that there's no way to spin this as a positive for Deeds.

I'm not so sure. These days, everybody thinks that Doug Wilder is psycho. White and black. Rich and poor. Democratic and Republican. Isn't a Wilder endorsement the kiss of death? I am conspiratorial enough to think that Obama and Kaine's pleading with Wilder to endorse Deeds was just kabuki theater.

You non-Virginians probably know about GOP candidate Bob McDonnell's master's thesis which exhibited cave man views on gender relations. I like Kevin Drum's 25/25 rule: You can't hold anything against a politician that he/she said more than 25 years ago or prior to his/her 25th birthday. Alas, McDonnell wrote his thesis in 1989 when he was in his mid-30s. It's fair game, and Deeds has been beating on that thesis like a drum, but that says to me that Deeds has yet to shore up his left flank (he was the most conservative of the three Dems in the primary). And he has yet to lock down the soccer mom/security mom/working mom vote.

Deeds is in trouble. You don't want to be going into October in that kind of shape. Plus, the economy stinks, and Democrats have held the governor's office for eight years. Time for a change, right?

There's no way that I'd vote for a troglodyte like McDonnell, but Deeds hasn't run an inspiring campaign. Deeds' ads notwithstanding, governors can't do jack about abortion. Their bread and butter is transportation and education, but all we get from Deeds is, "When I'm Governor, I'm gonna, you know, get people together and come up with a bipartisan transportation plan." Well that's no plan.

The gas tax in North Carolina is 31 cents per gallon. In Virginia it's 19. And Virginia's roads suck. Driving on I-64 in Richmond is like driving to the Baghdad airport. Northern Virginia is a parking lot, any time of day, and in any direction. We need fewer potholes and more mass transit. Just raise the gas tax and be done with it, OK?

Wilder won't endorse Deeds in part because Deeds won't rule out such a tax increase, which Wilder says is regressive. But look; it's not regressive in cities because poor people ride the bus, and even in rural areas, an extra 10 cents per gallon would be invisible--well within the customary price fluctuations of a commodity like gasoline.