Eight Days To Go And Democrat Tries To Come Back

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (WUSA) -- Just a week and a day until Virginia voters pick their next governor, and Democrat Creigh Deeds is trying desperately to make up a deficit that at one point neared double digits.

President Obama will campaign for Deeds on Tuesday in Norfolk. Despite some distancing at the White House, the race is widely seen as a test of the President's power and popularity.

In a rowhouse in Old Town Alexandria, Democratic volunteers are feverishly trying to re-ignite some of the fire that helped President Obama turn Virginia blue for the first time in decades.
"You know it's kind of hard to transition from a big presidential campaign to a state campaign," says volunteer Elle Howard.

If Deeds hopes to eke out a surprise victory, he'll have to rack up big margins in liberal bastions like Alexandria. "I sense a little bit of a bounce. A little bit of the narrowing of the gap," says another volunteer, William Clayton.

But out on the street, it's far from a tide. "I'll be voting for Bob McDonnell," says Noel Harris, a architecture student in Alexandria. "Some of my Democratic friends are more undecided. Normally they go straight Democratic. But this year," they're undecided, says James Rice, who plans to vote for Deeds.

The President will campaign for Deeds on Tuesday, but there is a perception, at the White House, and among some voters, that Deeds has held President Obama at arm's length. He had some negative comments over the weekend on the public option in health reform. And he said at one point, he was a Deeds Democrat, not an Obama Democrat.

"I'm not going to visit my sins on anyone else. I think for myself, and I try to reflect that at all times," says Deeds. 

He was campaigning in Springfield, and insisting that three big newspaper endorsements will help him turn the corner. "Is there anything you regret about how you ran this campaign?" I asked him. "Not a thing." "No regrets?" "No."

Deeds was endorsed by the Washington Post, the Virginia Pilot and the Roanoke Times. Republican Bob McDonnell won the nod Sunday from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, and the Culpeper Star-Exponent.