So, the advertising is heating up and so are the attacks in the Democrat’s quest to find a nominee for governor. So far, most of the fire has been aimed at Terry McAuliffe.

By far the most vocal opponent has been Brian Moran; although, until this week he had to rely mostly on debate performances and email news releases to make his attacks. This week, he’s taken his verbal jabs to the airwaves in a radio ad and now a new television ad, his first of the campaign.

As a result, the McAuliffe campaign has been hitting back. Mostly, they’re busy rebutting Moran’s comments and calling him a negative campaigner.

The impact of this back and forth may very well hurt both men. Almost all negative attacks have a boomerang effect, which means Moran will likely see his negatives go up the more he attacks. Voters tend to see the candidate on the attack as more unlikeable. Think Bob Dole in 1988 as he was running for president. And, no doubt the more McAuliffe has a target on his back, the higher his negatives will go as well.
That leaves the third candidate in the race: Creigh Deeds. Deeds is a nice, folksy, country lawyer. He can come across either very down to earth or almost clumsy depending on your perspective. For sure, he’s not as polished or television savvy as his two opponents. All of that makes him extremely likeable.

Note this news release from the Deeds campaign highlighting a new statewide poll showing some gains for Deeds.

      According to SurveyUSA, “Deeds is the only candidate with momentum, and today Deeds leads McAuliffe in Central Virginia by 12 points,
      a 19-point swing to Deeds in the past 3 weeks.”  WJLA-TV in Washington, DC says: “This poll says that McAuliffe and Moran are flat, and
      Deeds is up.”

      “With just 20 days to go, our campaign is gaining momentum heading into June 9th,” said Deeds campaign manager Joe Abbey.  “Virginians
      are responding to Creigh’s positive message of creating opportunity, prosperity, and hope in every corner of Virginia.  Creigh is the most prepared
      Democrat to be Governor and he will clearly put us in the strongest position to beat Bob McDonnell in November.”

Of course, the release fails to point out that according to the poll McAuliffe is still leading in the race with Deeds second and Moran third. The poll results are posted on politicalwire.com.

And Deeds should not be underestimated. He almost beat Republican Bob McDonnell four years ago in the closest statewide race in Virginia history. He’s run a smart campaign this year that has raised enough money to be competitive, spent that money wisely, and focused on the areas of the commonwealth where he needs to perform very well to pull off an upset victory.

In other words, all of the back and forth between Moran and McAuliffe could backfire by benefiting Deeds. But be sure of this, if Deeds does end up winning the nomination, it won’t be solely because of the McAuliffe/Moran war. Sure, he may be helped by it. But, you’ll have to give him credit for running a strong enough campaign to take advantage of it.