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Deeds should’ve listened to us, senior Obama officials say – WaPo (10/22/09):

Sensing that victory in the race for Virginia governor is slipping away, Democrats at the national level are laying the groundwork to blame a loss in a key swing state on a weak candidate who ran a poor campaign that failed to fully embrace President Obama until days before the election.

Senior administration officials have expressed frustration with how Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has handled his campaign for governor, refusing early offers of strategic advice and failing to reach out to several key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in 2008, they say.
[...]
A senior administration official said Deeds badly erred on several fronts, including not doing a better job of coordinating with the White House. “I understood in the beginning why there was some reluctance to run all around the state with Barack Obama,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly about the race. “You don’t do that in Virginia. But when you consider the African American turnout that they need, and then when you consider as well they’ve got a huge problem with surge voters, younger voters, we were just a natural for them.”

The audacity of that Deeds fellow, not relying on Obama’s platinum political judgement. How dare he?

Maybe these “senior administration officials” should take a look at polling out of Virginia. Like this one where Obama is 49/48 approve/disapprove overall, and 42/53 with independents. Deeds is going to lose, but it’s not like he would have won by holding Obama’s hand and skipping around the state.