6/5: The Battle For The Commonwealth

The VA GOV Dem primary is Tuesday, and the race is starting to get more attention from liberal bloggers. Now that state Sen. Creigh Deeds is surging in the latest polls, several bloggers are proclaiming him "the new favorite". In fact, statistics guru Nate Silver puts Deeds' chances at "60-70%." However, other lefty bloggers contend that the race is far from over. Jerome Armstrong (who serves as ex-state delegate Brian Moran's Netroots Consultant) predicts that Moran "will wind up gaining above his final poll standing the most, due to having the largest and deepest Democratic activist GOTV operation." Markos Moulitsas (who's more anti-Terry McAuliffe than pro-Moran or pro-Deeds) wonders if Deeds has enough GOTV resources to get his newfound NoVa supporters to the polls.

In other news, Moulitsas was disappointed by DGA Chair/MT Gov. Brian Schweitzer's endorsement of McAuliffe, which Moulitsas calls a "terrible move" that "definitely takes a bite out of [Schweitzer's] grassroots cred." We find it interesting that while prominent national bloggers (Moulitsas, Armstrong) are strongly critical of McAuliffe, the leading VA bloggers are supporting the ex-DNC Chair. In the '06 Senate primary between Jim Webb and Harris Miller, national bloggers and VA bloggers were on the same side.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Conservative bloggers (Huston, Erickson, Liebau, Geraghty, Hinderaker) continue to criticize Pres. Obama's Cairo speech. Other conservative bloggers (Lowry, Mirengoff) had a slightly more positive reaction to the speech. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Blue Texan, Kleiman, Yglesias) are mocking critics of Obama's speech.
• Yesterday, liberal bloggers (Yglesias, hilzoy, Marshall) criticized Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) for saying, "I do not support a settlement freeze that calls on Israeli families not to grow, get married, or forces them to throw away their grandparents." Lefty bloggers were pleased when Ackerman subsequently clarified his comments.
• Liberal bloggers (Yglesias, Atrios, Benen, Dayen, Kurtz) are praising E.J. Dionne's column in which he alleges that "there is a deep and largely unconscious conservative bias in the media's discussion of policy."

VA GOV: Mr. Deeds Goes To Town

After the new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll became the latest poll to show Deeds with significant momentum, several liberal bloggers are now calling him the favorite:

• FiveThirtyEight's Silver: "Deeds has all sorts of momentum. [...] McAuliffe does not have the momentum. In fact, his stock is dropping like a rock. Meanwhile, the third candidate, Brian Moran, is gaining ground on McAuliffe too but having trouble keeping up with Deeds. [...] My armchair assessment is that the probabilities here are something like Deeds 60-70%, McAuliffe 20-30%, and Moran 10-20%."
• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The four-poll average is currently Deeds 28.8%, McAuliffe 27.8%, and Moran 24.5%. With such rapid movement and so many undecideds, it would appear that any of the three can win. However, the trend from Pollster.com shows that Deeds is surging. Deeds would have to be considered the new favorite, given that trend."

Other bloggers contend that the race is far from over:

• MyDD's Armstrong: "The latest Research 2000 poll shows McAuliffe slipping into 3rd, but its all within the MOE. [...] The falling of McAuliffe is nearly the identical inverse of the rise of Deeds. Meanwhile, Moran keeps upticking away. I think McAuliffe will wind up taking a bit of that back from Deeds, because he's got a big paid staff and Deeds laid off his staff to buy ads. Moran will wind up gaining above his final poll standing the most, due to having the largest and deepest Democratic activist GOTV operation."
• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "Check out Deeds -- a whopping 17-point gain in just two weeks. The momentum is clearly his. Now Deeds has bet everything on an air campaign, even laying off staff to conserve resources to do it. Will he still have the resources to drag people out to the polls, especially his newfound support in NoVa? [...] In the 2005 Lt. Governor primary, 32.48 percent of the vote came from Northern Virginia (NoVa). In the 2006 Senate primary, 44.65 percent did. R2K is betting on 2005-like numbers, which given the strong southern-VA candidate, may be the safer bet. But if the numbers end up being closer to 2006's, then Moran has the edge -- especially since Moran's field operation appears concentrated in NoVa while Deed's has little in the region."

Meanwhile, AMERICAblog's John Aravosis thinks he's seeing too much of McAuliffe on TV: "I'm seeing a lot of Terry McAuliffe's ads featuring Terry McAuliffe. Let me tell you this: a little Terry McAuliffe goes a long, long, long way. His consultants made a mistake featuring McAuliffe so prominently in the ads. He's annoying and quickly becomes grating. I just want the Democrat to win in November. The Republican candidate is a right-winger named Bob McDonnell. I've seen a lot of ads trashing McDonnell already -- and he's on the air with his own spot. If McAuliffe pulls off the primary, he better get a new ad team or a new t.v. strategy."

Conservative blogger Jim Geraghty wonders if the competitive primary will hurt the Dem nominee in the general election: "Everything indicates that Tuesday's Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary is going to be a barnburner -- another poll out today puts all three within the margin of error. While most Democrats will probably unify behind their nominee, it will be a bit of a unique challenge for the candidate to enter the general election with 60 percent of Democrats or more having voted for somebody else..."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: "An Absolutely Extraordinary Moment"

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg:

"An Absolutely Extraordinary Moment: An African-American President with Muslim roots stands before the Muslim world and defends the right of Jews to a nation of their own in their ancestral homeland, and then denounces in vociferous terms the evil of Holocaust denial, and right-wing Israelis go forth and complain that the President is unsympathetic to the housing needs of settlers. Incredible, just incredible."

LEST WE FORGET: God Texts The Ten Commandments

McSweeney's contributor Jamie Quatro:

1. no1 b4 me. srsly.
2. dnt wrshp pix/idols
3. no omg's
4. no wrk on w/end (sat 4 now; sun l8r)
5. pos ok - ur m&d r cool
6. dnt kill ppl
7. :-X only w/ m8
8. dnt steal
9. dnt lie re: bf
10. dnt ogle ur bf's m8. or ox. or dnkey. myob.

M, pls rite on tabs & giv 2 ppl.

ttyl, JHWH.

ps. wwjd?