  OLITICOS, PUNDITS AND armchair campaign managers around the country are keeping a close eye on this year's gubernatorial contest in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The stakes couldn't be higher. In fact, many analysts believe this race (among others) may forecast things to come in the 2010 and 2012 elections - up to and including the battle for the White House.
That's why it's of little surprise that a branch of the Democratic Party's media propaganda machine - the unabashedly liberal Washington Post - would, per usual, abandon any semblance of journalistic integrity and rush to the aid of State Senator Creigh Deeds, Virginia's floundering Democratic gubernatorial candidate.
Deeds, who has run an abysmal campaign thus far, continues to trail his Republican counterpart - former State AG Bob McDonnell - by double digits.
In a thinly veiled effort to derail the McDonnell campaign, the Post, over the weekend, put on a case of the vapors, issuing a breathless report that presumed to expose the scandalous revelation that McDonnell - who attended the conservative Christian Regent University School of Law, was - now brace yourself - a conservative Christian.
The Post attempted - and continues an effort - to make hay out of a decades-old graduate thesis McDonnell penned wherein he expressed traditional conservative positions on issues ranging from abortion to the "God-ordained covenantal form" of family. (That would be Mom, Dad and the little squirts for all you liberal postmodernists):
"The family is an institution that existed antecedent to civil government," he wrote, "and hence is not subject to being defined by it."
McDonnell went on to decry the devastating cost of radical feminism within our culture and lamented the undeniable reality that far too many women who may desire to stay home and raise children, are forced to work as a result of governmental policies that favor practitioners of "alternative lifestyles," such as "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators."
He also addressed the popular notion that leaders should "correct the conventional folklore about the separation of church and state," pointing out that our Founding Fathers gave us the First Amendment to protect freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
The nerve!
Well, the Post's contrived revelation sent feigned shockwaves through a crocodile-tear-blinded leftosphere, leaving the few remaining people privy to the "scandal" asking: "Yea, so what?"
The Deeds camp - in sad desperation - has clutched onto the story like Molly Brown to driftwood, endeavoring to reinforce the facade that there is some "there" there. And the troubled candidate hasn't shut-up about it since.
Let's hope he doesn't.
As "Obama fever" briskly turns to "Obama fatigue," Deeds - each time he invokes "the thesis" to assail McDonnell's traditional Reaganesque conservatism - haplessly reminds voters of his own ideological ties to our radical Socialist-in-Chief.
Think about it. In his 1989 work, for example, McDonnell defended both the natural family and natural marriage. In 2006, the majority of Virginians - around 60 percent - passed Virginia's marriage protection amendment, declaring, with a unified voice, that they happen to agree.
Furthermore, in his thesis McDonnell quite adeptly articulated a strong pro-life position on the issue of abortion. Again, according to a recent Gallup poll, it just so happens that, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, a majority of Americans come down with him on the issue. In fact, 76 percent of Americans now believe that abortion should either be illegal under all circumstances, or legal; but only under certain circumstances.
Basically what Deeds and the Washington Post are saying is that both Bob McDonnell and the majority of his fellow Virginias are a bunch of backwoods hicks who bitterly "cling to guns and religion." Sound familiar?
In short, this elitist attack on McDonnell's traditional values thesis is really an attack on the majority of Virginians - Americans, really - who reject the extreme liberal policies both Deeds and the Post so arrogantly push.
Still, the episode has taught us more about Deeds than it has McDonnell: 1) He apparently favors abortion on demand; 2) If elected he would work in concert with atheist groups and other ACLU-types to rollback our First Amendment liberties; and 3) He would push to legalize "gay marriage" in the Old Dominion State. (We know for certain the Washington Post advocates these positions.)
So, a piece of unsolicited advice to candidate McDonnell - any conservative candidate for that matter: If you seek vigorous and loyal support from an energized electorate simply consider what's happening around you. Look to the town hall meetings and tea parties springing up across the country.
There's an ideological revolution afoot and it's the Barack Obama's, Creigh Deeds and Washington Posts of the world who are outnumbered - who are on the losing end.
Use this momentum. Channel Ronald Reagan. Place principle above pragmatism and tens of millions of Americans who see this nation entering the dark age of Obamunisim will carry you to victory.
Stand firm and tap that energy. As Obama's personal popularity gives way under the tremendous weight of his ideological radicalism, a vacuum is emerging. Fill it.
But you must never apologize, equivocate or capitulate on matters of transcendent truth. Don't run from your traditional values and don't hide from your conservative past. Embrace these things.
Indeed, it's not you, but Barack Obama, Creigh Deeds and the Washington Post who've lost touch with America.
So lead. Lead on principle. Simply let your yes be yes and your no be no. Lead and you will be amazed at the numbers who will follow.
Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. is Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel and Associate Dean with Liberty University School of Law. Send comments to Matt at jmattbarber@comcast.net.More columns by J. Matt Barber
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