By Shannon McGovern
State Sen. Creigh Deeds has campaigned statewide twice, losing the 2005 attorney general’s race by the smallest margin in Virginia history and suffering a crushing defeat to Republican Bob McDonnell in last year’s gubernatorial election.
These days he’s working closer to home, traveling through rural counties and small towns not unlike the one he grew up in. Addressing a group of Buena Vista residents in a blue Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and collar open, he resembles the people listening to him talk. He begins his speech with a joke.
“People say that you shouldn’t talk about politics and religion in polite company,” Deeds said. “Well I’ll tell you what, if you take those things off the table, there’s not a lot else to talk about.”
This is classic Deeds, a down-home country lawyer from Bath County, who is also a 100 percent battle-hardened politician. After graduating with a law degree from Wake Forest University, Deeds returned to Bath County as a prosecutor.
“In 1991 I was kind of a young prosecutor from Bath County that nobody knew, who had a funny name that nobody could pronounce,” said Deeds. His first name is pronounced “Cree.”
That year, he was elected to the state House of Delegates, where he served five terms until he was elected from District 25 to the Virginia Senate in 2001.
“I’m on the ballot every couple years, it seems like,” said Deeds.
Deeds has surpassed his opponent, Republican T.J. Aldous, 10-fold in campaign fundraising, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
The moderate Democrat says he has tried to remain loyal to his rural Virginia roots by fighting to keep taxes low in the state, believing that this will draw new business into the area and create jobs. His goals include improving school systems and classroom resources to provide students in rural communities with the opportunities enjoyed by children elsewhere.
“There’s not too many things that have happened in Richmond in the last 20 years that my thumbprint, or forefinger-print, is not on one way or another,” Deeds said. “Maybe it’s not in the headlines, because I’m not a headline-grabbing guy.”
Deeds made his mark on Virginia’s version of Megan’s Law, legislation that provides the public with access to a registry of sex offenders and their addresses.
“Politics is not all about Democrats and Republicans,” Deeds said. “It’s about solving problems. It’s about trying to identify and solve problems for the people we represent.”
This is the first in a two-part series previewing the Senate race for Virginia’s 25th district. Next week we will cover Deeds’ opponent, Republican T.J. Aldous.