The Deeds campaign of small discrepancies and tall tales

One of Creigh Deeds’ ads says that a college paper Bob McDonnell wrote in 1989 shows McDonnell wants to take Virginia “back to the Dark Ages.”

A CNN report points out a relatively small Deeds’ discrepancy: “The ad, however, makes a misleading claim: That McDonnell wrote the thesis when he was ‘months away’ from serving in office. In reality, he wrote it two years before his first election to the House of Delegates in 1991.”

The Washington Post had earlier reported that Joe Abbey, Creigh Deeds’ campaign manager, sent out an alert on Aug. 11, 2009, stating: “Breaking News: McDonnell Has Confederate Flag Posted In His Booth At Gun Show In Richmond.”

That would have been a great story for the Deeds camp except that The Washington Post pointed out it wasn’t true.

The Post interviewed Hugh Crittenden, manager of the Virginia Outdoor Sportsman Show, who agreed that the Confederate flag was at the adjoining booth. Crittenden said that he had invited both candidates to the show, McDonnell’s campaign accepted and was assigned the last booth available, right next to Down Home T-Shirts, which sold “Confederate T-shirts and more.”

Besides being false, the attempt to cast McDonnell as a bigot also boomeranged on the Deeds camp when the Post pointed out that in 1999 Deeds had urged fellow legislators to allow the Sons of Confederate Veterans to have a specialty license plate, saying: “I grew up in a house with a portrait of the Confederate flag on the wall. I grew up in a house with a portrait of Robert E. Lee on the wall over my bed.”

In another Deeds ad, the narrator scoffs: “In tough times, what kind of politician sides with Appalachian Power? Bob McDonnell. He recommended $180 million in rate increases that would cost $360 for each of us. McDonnell even said the utility companies were entitled to it.”

The Washington Post Factchecker points out, however, that while he was attorney general, Bob McDonnell’s “Office of Consumer Counsel actually supported the increases because it was legally obligated to weigh in by state law. And the recommendations from McDonnell’s office were in line with the final numbers eventually approved by independent state regulators.”

Under the headline “Deeds, Teller of Tall Tales,” the Waynesboro News Virginian took issue with Deeds’ claim that: “Bob McDonnell introduced 35 bills restricting a woman’s right to choose.” Not true, the News Virginian says. During McDonnell’s 14 years as a state legislator, “just eight of almost 400 bills he introduced opposed abortion.”

The Deeds campaign ads state that Bob McDonnell supports “no birth control for married adults.” The News Virginian says that’s another tall tale: “The claim that McDonnell voted against contraceptives for married adults is also false. He favored a bill allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives under a so-called conscience clause. The point was to support pharmacists — not target married adults.”

And The Washington Post pointed out that it was Deeds, not McDonnell, who tended to vote with the minority fringe on social issues. McDonnell voted with the majority who favored parental consent before an underage girl could get an abortion, and a ban on partial birth abortions. Deeds, the Post reported, did not support parental consent, and though he first voted for a ban on partial birth abortions, he later reversed himself.

Between the small discrepancies and the tall tales, the Deeds’ campaign deceits are adding up.

Sharman’s column appears Tuesdays on the editorial page.