Candidates gather force in march to Election Day

Virginia’s gubernatorial candidates hit the road in search of votes today, each with a different spin on public opinion polls that show the Republicans ahead. The GOP’s Bob McDonnell warned against overconfidence while Democrat Creigh Deeds said he can prevail despite the gloomy forecast.

Deeds, accompanied by his son and daughter, appeared in the Richmond area and waved off polls showing him trailing Republican Bob McDonnell by double digits.

As Deeds told a mid-morning audience of more than 50 at a Fan District coffee house, “If I had quit anywhere along the path, I’d be back home shoveling manure.“

Deeds, a lawyer-legislator from rural Bath County, stopped by a cable-television customer phone center; wolfed down bacon, eggs, grits and red-eye gravy at one of his favorite breakfast haunts and did a brief grip-and-grin at Virginia Commonwealth University.

In the dash to Election Day, Deeds is reaching to so-called surge voters, many of them newcomers to politics who helped tip Virginia last year to Barack Obama, who campaigned for him Tuesday in Hampton Roads.

McDonnell and lieutenant governor candidate Bill Bolling, meantime, were jointed by national GOP chairman Michael Steele as they kicked off a 25-locality, five-day statewide tour.

“Polls don’t vote,“ Bolling told a large crowd that gathered early in the morning at a western Henrico diner.

Steele said the potential Republican victories in Virginia should not be viewed as a referendum on Prsident Obama. He said they reflect campaigns that focussed on the economy and creating jobs.

“Tuesday is a bellwether and the bells are going to ring for Tim Kaine and Barack Obama,“ he added.