The candidates for governor have now survived their first encounter… the annual debate at the Virginia Bar Association’s Convention at the Homestead.

You can get the blow by blow details of the debate in my story, posted in the politics section of our website.

But, here are a couple more observations that I didn’t include in the story:

1) There appeared to be little to no animosity between these men. Sure, there were differences. And yes, they attacked each other’s records and positions. But, there were no personal attacks and the punches were fairly light. No one was snarling at each, a marked difference from the last few VBA debates including the Warner/Gilmore debate (where the hatred was very visible) and even the Allen/Webb debate.

2) The McDonnell folks ran a more traditional pre-debate campaign. They had MANY more signs out leading up to the Homestead. This seemed a bit strange to me, since The Homestead Resort is just a few miles from Deeds’ home and is in his Senate District. However, perhaps I should have expected this. The Deeds campaign spent little to no money on yard signs during the primary campaign, preferring instead to save their money for organization and TV advertising.

3) The campaign teams for both sides were armed with mountains of research on their opponents and were more than happy to clutter every reporter’s inbox with countless emails about the other guy’s mistakes and misstatements.

4) I think both men gave their best responses of the debate on the issue of guns. The question they were asked was rather broad and included the shooting at Virginia Tech. This allowed Deeds and McDonnell to both give a more personal response about the impact of the shooting on them and how they responded to it in the days and months after the shooting. It was a strong performance by both gentlemen.

5) Both men gave their worst answers on the question of gay rights. It’s clear neither wants to talk about this topic and both pivoted as quickly as possible. And there’s an easy explanation. Deeds is against gay marriage and doesn’t want that stance to alienate the gay voters, which is a core constituency of the Democratic Party. McDonnell tried to portray a more moderate image on the issue while maintaining his support for traditional marriage. This could help his appeal in the more liberal, Democratic Northern Virginia region. But, he didn’t want to go too far and risk alienating his conservative base. This is an issue that likely doesn’t help either man.

6) Finally, this debate was supposed to be 90 minutes; however, it started late and ended early. That might be a first for any debate I have ever been a part of!

All in all, it was an informational exchange and laid a good foundation for the remaining debates and forums.