Top 6 Losers:

- Creigh Deeds. Again this was obvious, but his loss was huge, the largest in almost 20 years. There are many reasons for his defeat, but one is the candidate himself. Deeds’ speaking style is a little rough. But, that’s not the problem. If his ideas/proposals had been thoughtful, it wouldn’t have mattered that he stammered through the explanation. Instead, the problem was his inability to articulate a clear message. You never got the sense that he really had a solution for our roads, taxes, etc.

- Our roads. Unfortunately neither candidate put forth a real, workable proposal to fix our transportation crisis. McDonnell is right that raising taxes during a recession is not a good idea and he was smart to develop alternative sources to pay for our roads. But, those alternative sources have been roundly criticized as either unproven or retread ideas that will likely die in the General Assembly. Deeds is likely right that it will eventually take new revenue in the form of some type of a tax increase to generate the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to adequately fix our roads. But, a recession isn’t the time to do that and a tax increase will never pass the conservative House of Delegates. Therefore, campaigning on a tax increase was a bad idea. In other words, it may be another four years before this issue has a real chance to be addressed and that assumes we’re in better economic conditions.

- Rural Virginia. It wasn’t that long ago that our end of the commonwealth determined the outcome of elections. In 2001 the candidates spent a great deal of time campaigning in Southside and Southwest Virginia and ultimately it made the different for Democrat Mark Warner in his bid for the governor’s mansion. But, since then, our impact has been waning. We saw it in 2005, 2006, and definitely in this election. Northern Virginia is now the swing district where campaigns are fought and won.

- Steve Shannon. He was thought to be a rising star in the Democratic Party. But, his loss was big enough to most likely relegate him to oblivion. Virginia doesn’t like losers and they rarely get a second shot. Further, he gave up his safe House seat to run for attorney general. It’s hard to see where he goes next.

- The Democratic Party. Where’s the next star for the Democrats? The bench is looking very, very thin. Who will run for governor in four years? There is no obvious choice and whoever it is will likely have very low to no statewide name recognition. For a party that was on the rise for so long, they are now in a world of hurt.

- Tim Kaine. The outgoing governor and current chair of the DNC invested heavily in his time and the national party’s money in the Deeds campaign and he ended up embarrassed. He did a good job spinning the loss today, blaming it on history and Virginia’s propensity to vote against the party in power in the White House. That’s an acceptable explanation if Deeds’ had lost by an acceptable margin. But, his 18-point defeat is more than a historical trend in Virginia and it’s an embarrassing way for Kaine to end his tenure as Virginia’s governor.