Published: November 01, 2009 09:09 pm      

Va. governor candidates ply voters in race’s last days

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) — Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat R. Creigh Deeds barnstormed church services Sunday morning, then spent the afternoon urging their faithful to take voters to the polls in Tuesday’s governor’s election.

With a new poll showing McDonnell ahead by 12 percentage points and the statewide Republican ticket leading comfortably in races for all three offices, a jubilant crowd of about 150 jammed into a vacant storefront in Chesapeake. Some held up brooms with “Clean Sweep” signs taped to them.

For Deeds and his ticket, a morning spent in African-American churches with U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott and an afternoon of rallies was one last effort to motivate the massive base of voters who powered President Barack Obama’s Virginia sweep a year ago.

In Chesapeake, a crowd that included Republican volunteers and dozens of home-schooled children from other states was giddy, sensing the first major statewide GOP victory in nine years.

A poll several Virginia news organizations commissioned showed that 53 percent of 625 likely voters surveyed statewide supported McDonnell, compared with 41 percent who said they would vote for Deeds. Six percent were undecided.

Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. conducted the poll Oct 28-29.

Its results are outside the margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

McDonnell was at ease and confident but weary as he addressed the first of 12 rallies scheduled Sunday and Monday in every region of the state. He breezed through talking points memorized months ago but stopped abruptly when his curiosity about one supporter’s sign that read “Chuck Norris Likes Bob McDonnell” proved irresistible.

“I’ve just got to ask that young man in the back, does Chuck Norris really like me?” McDonnell said, his non sequitur evoking laughter. “It’s a great sign. It’s just that I never met him.”

McDonnell and Kenneth Cuccinelli, his GOP ticket mate who holds a comfortable poll lead in the attorney general’s race, said Tuesday’s contest is a rejection of policies by Obama and a Democratic Congress on issues including health care reform, an energy bill intended to reduce fossil fuel use, the stimulus programs and stalled legislation that would make it easier for workers to form unions.

“I hear the Democrats are getting so desperate that they’re thinking of flying Tim Kaine into the state,” Cuccinelli said, a dig at the incumbent governor’s frequent national travels in his role as Democratic National Committee chairman.

A few feet in front of McDonnell, Rose Supples, an 11-year-old home-schooled pupil from Northport, Fla., jumped up and down every time the crowd cheered. She also caught McDonnell’s attention.

“How many cups of coffee have you had this morning?” he asked her.

Supples came to Virginia on Thursday in one of several van pools that brought home-taught children from conservative households into Virginia.

Asked why she traveled so far, she beamed and said, “To get Republicans in office.” Asked why that was important, she thought a moment and replied, “I don’t know.”