Right out of the gate, Rasmussen Reports has released a poll taken Wednesday night showing newly-minted Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds leading Republican Bob McDonnell 47-41.  No doubt, these numbers may be a bit inflated in Deeds' favor, it being a one-day poll taken as Deeds enjoyed glowing press following his come-from-behind primary victory.  Nevertheless, given that the last Ras poll matching up Deeds and McDonnell showed McDonnell leading 45-30, these are welcomed numbers.  Deeds also enjoys a slight favorability edge over McDonnell according to the poll, with Deeds at 59-27, compared with McDonnell's 52-28.

Deeds and McDonnell have, of course, tangled before, with McDonnell barely edging Deeds by a hair in the 2005 Attorney General race, the difference being 323 votes out of over 1.94 million votes counted (yes, just 323 - no, that's not a typo with zeroes missing).  So this will be very close.  This first poll, though, refutes the inevitability meme that McDonnell was hoping to spread.

After losing the NY-20 special House election and losing a Senator to a Party switch, the GOP is reeling.  Losing VA-Gov, which they are expecting to win comfortably, would be a major body blow heading into the 2010 calendar year.  So get on the Deeds bus!  Visit his website.  Join the Facebook group.  Follow Deeds on Twitter.  Subscribe to the e-mail list.  Oh, yeah, and please contribute!

If you need to know the type of Republican we're facing in Bob McDonnell, visit TheRealBobMcDonnell.com for all the dirt (and share that URL with anyone you know who lives in Virginia, has friends and family in Virginia, might move to Virginia, etc.).  If you're looking to pigeonhole McDonnell, the best description is that he is a Pat Robertson disciple.  Yeah.  So it would be awfully swell to keep him out of the Governor's office.

Remember: the 2005 Deeds-McDonnell race was decided by 323 votes out of over 1.94 million votes counted.  This race will be exceptionally close.  Every single dollar will make a difference.  Every single minute spent volunteering will make a difference.  Republicans will be favored to win this right up until Election Day.  However, if Democrats in Virginia and across the country are able to contribute time, money, and resources, we can flush the conventional wisdom down the toilet and deliver yet another embarrassment to the Rush-Newt-Cheney Republican Party and another loss to the Michael Steele RNC.

There's more...

(Proudly cross-posted at C4O Democrats)

I usually don't like to wade into LA politics. I usually have enough on my hands with Orange County matters, so I just don't have time for Los Angeles electoral fights. However, I have to say something about the special election coming up in California's32nd Congressional District.

There's more...

John McCain just can't help but reveal  his profound ignorance of basic issues, for instance when questioned about HIV prevention and condoms.

Per the New York Times:

What followed was a long series of awkward pauses, glances up to the ceiling and the image of one of Mr. McCain's aides, standing off to the back, urgently motioning his press secretary to come to Mr. McCain's side.

The upshot was that Mr. McCain said he did not know this subject well, did not know his position on it, and relied on the advice of Senator Tom Coburn, a physician and Republican from Oklahoma.

McCain revealed his masterful grasp of the facts:

"The guy I really respect on this is Dr. Coburn... I'm not informed enough on it. Let me find out... I have to find out what my position was... Get me Coburn's thing, ask Weaver to get me Coburn's paper that he just gave me in the last couple of days. I've never gotten into these issues before."

So who exactly is this Dr. Coburn?

There's more...

Ah, American politics, did you know I got away for a week to the UK? I was over there for the Liberal Democrats international conference. It brought out campaign operatives from sister parties of the LD's from mostly Africa and eastern Europe.

I gave a presentation on the blogosphere, social media, and the netroots. The basis of it was from a presentation I'd done for NPI a year ago, but things have been radically altered even since that time. For the most part, only the UK and Europe are close to the development of the blogosphere found in the US. In some ways, what I was talking about over a couple of hours of back and forth was a foreign language to the professionals working campaigns in those areas of the world where internet access is very low due to a lack of personal PC's, like single-digit, and broadband access even lower.  What they do have is cell phones, and lots of them.

During one of the afternoons, we delved into the use of SMS in campaigns, and the participants, all of whom had much more experience than we do in the US with using mobile, shared their experiences. What struck me was how disruptive the tactics were for using SMS. It shouldn't have, given that's what new media technologies have done over and over again, in the hands of online insurgents and revolutionaries, even here in the USA.

In the recent Kenya elections, a professional read through some of the most popular viral SMS messages used during the campaign. They were incredibly incendiary (the most bizarre revolving around circumcision), and he questioned the assumption that new tools are being used in a constructive manner. SMS is used a lot, and is transforming politics in Africa, but not in a very controlled campaign-centric manner, but instead its very bottom up. One really key tip I learned from their experiences was that over half of the sign-ups for SMS from campaigns in Africa is not done from texting to the campaign, but actually calling a number, and having an automated service register your enrollment for SMS, so providing both routes when marketing the join process is key.

In eastern Europe, the most successful campaigns have also been the viral disruptive ones. Texting "he's lying" in Georgia, for example, during the speech's by their President broadcast on television. Or while in the traffic of Belarus, people setting a time ahead during which every person in their own car will suddenly honk their horn, or turn off their car for a minute and sit there on the road.

Every single country is very different in their experience, but one thing that's common among them all is the lack of browsing the internet. I think this could radically change in the next few years. The convergence that is happening between mobile and browsers right now will facilitate a leap-frog effect for countries where personal PC's are few in number, but mobile devices are proliferate. The use of social media via the internet will broaden widely. The cost will be a barrier still, but similar to how SMS is used, the information will be widely disseminated. And probably even more disruptive. It much easier to mask content on the internet than it is over the phone. There were many stories about persons who got in trouble with the ruling gov't or party, when SMS messages they forwarded fell into the wrong hands. Yes, IP's are tracked too, but places like internet cafes serve to mask the identity, as well as IP masking.

I'll hopefully be following up on the state of the parties, especially the LD's in a follow-up, and the current mayoral race in London. Probably the highlight of the trip, from a tourist perspective, was getting a prized ticked to attend the parliamentary questions and budget presentation last Wednesday. I watched the PM Brown, in the rapid fire format of UK politics, take questions, and then the follow-ups to the Budget presentation, given by the party leaders, especially those of David Cameron, the Conservative leader, and Nick Clegg, the LD's new leader. The UK political situation, at the leadership spot, has really transformed a lot in the time since the elections of 2005. It will make the liklihood that the next one, possibly in mid 2009, is a change election. Though the early betting was on the Tories behind Cameron, Clegg has got a populist change message that will resonate:

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Also, catch MP Ed Davey on Clegg's speech here. I met over dinner one night with Ed and some other LD's, and he asked me if I was 'spinning him' when I gave him a review of the Dems chances here in the US congressional and senate races, lol.

And you just have to take a look at Brian Paddick, the LD's candidate for Mayor in London. I got a chance to meet with him, advising him and his staff on using the internet for viral campaign strategy, and what a change he'd bring. His bio, a recent article, and the most recent poll shows him at 19, compared to 37 and 34 for the Labor and Torie. They use an IRV system of first and second choices on the ballot, so Paddick does have a good shot at winning with a late break toward him by voters.

There's more...