This looks like a race in NY for the Senate primary. Joe Trippi blogs here about the recent Quinnipiac poll showing Kirsten Gillibrand narrowly behind Carolyn Maloney, with Jonathan Tasini far behind:

Maloney    27
Gillibrand 23
Tasini      4

And Patterson is weak, very weak. So much so, that in a match-up against Cuomo, he shouldn't even bother, trailing 57-20. Plus, if Patterson were the nominee against Giuliani, he trails 52-34. Meanwhile, Cuomo defeats Rudy by a margin of 51-39. The disapproval rating of David Patterson is 61 percent. Dismal; and trending upward. 64% say Patterson doesn't deserve another term-- he's a goner unless he has a rabbit to pull out of his hat that turns this around.

Back to the Senate primary, Kirsten Gillibrand is just unknown, with 63% saying they lack enough info on her to form an approval/disapproval opinion; but the same goes for Carolyn Maloney, who has 67% saying they don't know her enough too. So that's equal standing at the starting gate, with Maloney a bit ahead. Either one would trounce Peter King.

A terrific op-ed by Roger Cohen on Iran, The End of the Beginning. It seems to me, that Obama has come onto the scene with some strong words with pretty good timing, with keeping in mind the sort of in-fighting that Charles mentions earlier today, and the fact that we will likely see more marches pretty soon.

I've only had time to watch a few videos and read a few Twitter posts on the story, having been consumed with some other projects recently, but imagine if the regime topples in Iran. Now that would be incredible.

Now we know the answer to that question: Not Virginia.

Though I have to admit that playing a role in the defeat of Terry McAuliffe feels sinisterly good, there's nothing worse than working on a losing campaign, election night. It'd been a while since I had to feel that sting of defeat-- since losing while working for Howard Dean in 03-04. Over the past 3 cycles and about a dozen candidates I've worked for to elect in primaries and GE elections, it was all winning. Last night felt like Iowa in '04 with Dean again.

But the online campaign for Brian Moran had it successes. Yea, we torpedoed McAuliffe, but we also developed a social activist platform at OrganizeVirginia.com that added the activism of personal fundraising pages on ActBlue and online phonebanking, alongside social networking & groups and blogs. OV was a huge success for online mobilization around Moran's campaign. We'll have more progressive candidates using the platform soon enough, along with SEIU. WSG just hired another stellar Rails developer to push the activist platform even further-- yes, eventually, leading here to MyDD.com

As for the Moran campaign strategy, I think we were a bit shocked at how shallow the support for McAuliffe was in depth, and rather than going nuclear on him for a couple of months, both online and throughout the media, a more short-lived and stealth strategy could have sufficed.

The Moran campaign definitely took its eye off of Deeds while taking down McAuliffe. Ultimately, there was a swing group of about 15% that wanted, above all else, to defeat McAuliffe, and when the momentum and polls started breaking for Deeds, those voters strategically swung behind his candidacy without little regard for the issues.

There's a really well-written post that describes the difficulties ahead for Deeds vs McDonnell, from 2005, Attorney Generals Race. I'm sure we'll have time to delve into it more in the coming months.

The campaign of Creigh Deeds was very well run. While Brian Moran's campaign did the grunt work of taking out Terry McAuliffe, they watched and waited. Yes, they got a huge stroke of luck with the Washington Post endorsement, but luck is only half the equation of a win like this to occur. The Deeds campaign took the opportunity and executed a perfect strategy. Congratulations to all those involved in the Deeds campaign.

Now, Creigh Deeds, lead the Democratic Party to victory in Virginia in 2009!

The PPP model is expecting a turnout of 300K for Tuesday's primary in Virginia. There are others whom are modeling a turnout of 165-185K (here's one credible source). Now, those present radically different models to base an election on, here's what PPP has:

The story goes something like this: Moran has been in the range of the mid 20's throughout PPP's polling, with a slim lead over McAuliffe and Deeds way back; then McAuliffe goes up and Moran takes him on & cuts him down to size; Deeds has waited and then gets the WaPost endorsement to start moving up as McAuliffe falls; Moran upticks a bit.

Three-way races can be like that, but the big caveat here is that PPP is relying on a lot of Independents and Republicans voting in the Democratic primary, and that Deeds leads among voters in NoVA over Moran. That's certainly not what the Moran campaign is finding with its huge ongoing effort of phone-banking:

I really am not too excited about the conservative Democrat Creigh Deeds. Deeds has really come out of nowhere, and is a blank slate to most voters. He's not very environmental, being in favor of offshore oil drilling and new coal plants, and he's backwards on gay marriage. That said, he's better by far than Terry McAuliffe and way better than Bob McDonnell. As PPP shows, he captured the huge anti-McAuliffe vote here in the state in their polling, which he owes to Moran for creating. Without Moran beating the shit out of McAuliffe, there is no Deeds surge in the polls, but that's 3-way primaries. It's not issue-based at all, with the poll finding liberal NoVA Democratic voters backing the conservative-- just a surge of electability vs McAuliffe.

A 14-16% lead seems unbeatable, but remember that PPP is predicting a huge turnout too. I know both McAuliffe and Moran have much better field organizations than Deeds, by far-- its not even close. Deeds has gotten all the breaks in the polls; now, does he have the votes? The turnout will tell. There may also be a final SUSA poll out Monday.

The updated Pollster graph has a still very close race with Moran within 6% of Deeds.

The latest Research 2000 poll shows McAuliffe slipping into 3rd, but its all within the MOE:

Deeds: 30
Moran: 27
McAuliffe: 26

The average of the last 5 polls from different pollsters has moved from a difference of 6% to an even closer 3% difference:

Deeds: 28.4
McAuliffe: 27.4
Moran 25.4

Here's the Pollster average:

The falling of McAuliffe is nearly the identical inverse of the rise of Deeds. Meanwhile, Moran keeps upticking away. I think McAuliffe will wind up taking a bit of that back from Deeds, because he's got a big paid staff and Deeds laid off his staff to buy ads. Moran will wind up gaining above his final poll standing the most, due to having the largest and deepest Democratic activist GOTV operation.

I told you this was going to come down to the final week with all three candidates tied up, and here we are. The three latest polls show Deeds, McAuliffe, and Moran all within single-digits of each other. If you are willing to bet on a slim lead within the MOE of a poll, you better be playing with the money of someone else.

The average of the last 4 polls from different pollsters puts the race at:
McAuliffe 30
Moran 25
Deeds 24

Politico has a good 40 something minute spot to watch:

Yes Politico, Moran is the progressive Democrat in the race.

Terry McAuliffe is betting on spending the most money.
Creigh Deeds is betting on a newspaper endorsement.
Brian Moran is betting that being the proven progressive, along with having the majority of the state's Mayoral endorsements (besides hundreds of other officials), and the largest online-offline grassroots campaign team, will push him over the top next Tuesday.

There's nothing more that I like than a truth teller, even in the face of the odds being against you. We've got less than two weeks before the Virginia election.

Two Virginia bloggers tell it like it is today.

Waldo Jaquith:

And Blueweeds, following his enthusiastic endorsement of Brian Moran:

Yes, Terry McAuliffe, who promised an all positive campaign, went negative this week, sending out a deceptive and dishonest mailer attacking both Brian Moran and Creigh Deeds. He's desperate, and we can beat him. Politico has three stories on it today, one of which I linked to on Twitter while swatting off the McAuliffe hustlers.

Brian Moran had a terrific fundraiser over at Ethel Kennedy's famed Hickory Hill estate. My WebStrong partner had 'the quote' in the WaPost about it: "The Kennedy mystique--this is it," said Moran supporter and website designer Todd Webster, as he stood on the home's back porch, drink in hand, gazing down the home's sloping green lawn. "Imagine playing touch football on that yard."

And via Salon (McAuliffe offered money to get me off ballots--whoa!), from Ralph Nader, in an interview with the Washington Post, said that then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe approached him with a deal: Money that would help him campaign in 31 states in exchange for a promise to get out of the race in 19 other states. Who you gonna believe, Ralph Nader or Terry McAuliffe?  I wouldn't put my money near the huckster, that's for sure.

I went out with a few fellow colleagues and put up Brian Moran signs in NoVA between the Potomac and the Richmond Hwy yesterday, from old town Alexandria to Mt Vernon. I haven't done that since '04 in Iowa for Dean. I love working for Brian Moran. I read crap put out by detractors about how he's not a great candidate, which is a bunch of bs. I know the guy pretty well, and he's in a select class with Mark Warner and Howard Dean as far as I'm concerned, because he actually just wants to govern well, not just sell himself off like some cheapass political celebrity stunt to win an ego-fulfilling election.

Speaking of Mark Warner: I believe he needs to come out and be the Big Dog of Virginia that he is, and endorse for Governor.  

So do a lot of national bloggers. It's time to get off the fence (or just notice there's a battle going on over here) and tell your Virginia readers the truth about Terry McAuliffe; because while many Virginians have figured out this guy over the past few months, we've had a history of in the netroots against his brand of politics the entire decade to date, and that needs to be reminded.

Update [2009-5-29 0:1:27 by Jerome Armstrong]:

John Nichols: "McAuliffe is asking the Democrats of Virginia to nominate him for a position of public trust. If he does not have a better explanation than the one that has so far been offered, there can and will be serious questioning of whether he's got that ought to be expected of major-party nominee and a governor."

The Operative Word: "I’d call this the worst day of the Terry McAuliffe campaign for governor."

Jim Severt: "Why Moran Will Win It on the 9th …and November 3rd"

New PPP poll, via New Dominion Project:

               05/22   05/05   03/30   03/01   02/01
McAuliffe   29       30        18        21        18
Moran       20       20        22        19        18
Deeds       20       14        15        14        11
Undec.      31       36        45        46        53

Its getting closer, and can get closer, as I think it will. McAuliffe got a bump from going up on the air, Deeds has now followed, and is Moran next?

The overall trend happening in the VA Gov race:

The analysis by Kenton Ngo, as well as Joel McDonald, are both worth reading up on. As for Deeds, well, his supporters like Waldo Jaquith are estactic today... but Moran supporters will have their day on June 9th.

The thing that I notice in this PPP poll is McAuliffe's sky-high negatives with the young and the Democratic base. Among voters younger than 45, McAuliffe's negatives are a whopping 53 percent. Among the voters that voted in either of the '05, '06, or '07 primary, McAuliffe has a 33% positive to 41% negative ratio. That's just abysmal.

Also among those same '05-'07 voters, the race winds up being:

Deeds     26
McAuliffe 23
Moran     21

Its the voters that only participated in '08, where McAuliffe has a strong lead (which gives him the overall advantage):

McAuliffe 34
Moran     20
Deeds     16

The sample of this poll has 52% of the electorate being those who only voted in the '08 primary, which is very high, and that favors McAuliffe. It's tough to see McAuliffe going any higher given he's already saturated coverage, and has such high negatives, which is why he depends on a group of voters outside the typical Democratic primary voters (which only he has had the money to influence for poll standing).

For Deeds, outside of NoVA, he captured undecideds that could go to McAuliffe or Moran with this bounce, but how does he get into NoVA where he trails so badly? It seems a stretch to think Deeds has a lot of upside in NoVA, given he has no presence or paid media in the region to date. Word of mouth of the conservative Democrat's endorsement by the WaPost is not going to be a viral typhoon either. But he's certain to go a bit higher than 11% you'd think.

Moran leads in NoVA (40%), but trails in third everywhere else. The good news there though, is that paid media is starting for him now, and its much cheaper to buy outside NoVA-- Moran has a lot of upside that's in reach during the last two weeks.

I could see this race having all three candidates in the 30's with the final margins.