Friday, September 04, 2009
Deeds focuses on McDonnell thesis
Deeds describes a paper written by his opponent as a "plan to take us back to the Dark Ages."
Related
roanoke.com/politics
RICHMOND -- Democrat Creigh Deeds is betting that a 20-year-old academic paper written by Republican rival Bob McDonnell will shake up the race for governor just as the fall campaign shifts into high gear.
Deeds on Thursday stepped up his assault on McDonnell over a postgraduate thesis paper in which McDonnell described the trends of feminism and working women as "detrimental to the family" and argued that government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators."
McDonnell, the former attorney general, insisted earlier this week that he has changed his views about working women and discriminatory public policies. But Deeds, who trails in the polls heading into Labor Day weekend, won't let McDonnell off the hook.
In a news conference with female supporters at the state Capitol, Deeds said the thesis provided the philosophical foundation for an agenda McDonnell pursued during a 14-year career in the House of Delegates.
"The path that he wrote about in 1989 is the path that he followed," Deeds said.
Among other things, Deeds pointed to McDonnell's efforts to restrict abortion rights and his votes against bills to strengthen child care regulations as evidence that "his record of public service is consistent with the thesis."
Deeds' campaign took the attack to the airwaves, launching a radio ad in vote-rich Northern Virginia that describes the McDonnell thesis as a "plan to take us back to the Dark Ages." The ad also notes that McDonnell wrote the paper while attending Regent University, described in the ad as "Pat Robertson's law school."
Republicans have charged that Deeds is hammering on the McDonnell thesis to activate a listless Democratic base and avoid issues such as jobs in the economy.
McDonnell wrote the paper as a 34-year-old master's and law degree candidate. He said earlier this week that the thesis was an "academic exercise" and that his own life experiences in the past two decades have changed some of his views. His wife has worked outside the home, his oldest daughter has served in the Army in Iraq, and he encouraged his two oldest daughters to pursue master's degrees to enhance their career prospects, he said.
"Bob's oldest daughter Jeanine served our nation in Iraq," McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said. "She had the toughest job in the world and the proudest dad. And we won't take lectures about supporting working women from Creigh Deeds."
Asked whether McDonnell's own experiences show that he has changed his views, Deeds said, "Perhaps it does."
"As I said, we are all works in progress," Deeds said. "But in 1989, he wrote that women working were detrimental to family life. And as recently as 2001, 12 years after that thesis was written, he voted against pay equity between men and women."
Deeds was referring to McDonnell's vote against a resolution recognizing "Equal Pay Day" to call attention to pay disparities between men and women.
Deeds said some of his own views have changed in the past two decades but did not offer specifics. He has noted during the campaign that he long opposed legislation to expand criminal background checks at gun shows, but changed his position after the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech.
The uproar over McDonnell's thesis began Sunday, when The Washington Post published a story about the paper, which is available at the Regent library.
Deeds can't help but wonder what would have happened if McDonnell's thesis had been unearthed in 2005, when they faced each other in the election for attorney general. McDonnell won by 360 votes in the closest statewide election in modern Virginia history.
"I wish I had known about it in 2005," Deeds said with a chuckle. "It probably would have been worth a few hundred votes."
