Endorsements............

Today, I am using both of my blogs to endorse Virginia's three Democratic candidates for state office. Though I am mostly a partisan Democrat, I will vote for a candidate from the Republican Party if I feel they are a moderate with strong leadership skills. Alas, in the South, the overwhelming majority of Republican candidates lean far-right and have close allegiances with extreme groups like The Christian Coalition and The Heritage Foundation.

Creigh Deeds from the rurual hamlet of Hot Springs, Va., is an upstanding citizen. He is a state senator who has had many years of experience in Richmond, and is considered to be one of the finest leaders for the Democratic Party in the state. He is also highly respected by independents and moderate Republicans. Politically, he is actually considered a centrist and he has actually been a proponent of gun rights.

I feel Deeds is strongly qualified to be governor, and he would be an excellent leader for my home state.

I am also endorsing Democrats Jody Wagner for lt. governor and Steve Shannon for attorney general. It would be great is Shannon could pull an upset over his opponent because Virginia has not had a Democratic attorney general since Mary Sue Terry held the post in the early '90s.

Tim Kaine (D) is the current governor of Virginia. By state law, he can not run for a second consecutive term. The last Republican governor of Virginia was Jim Gilmore. He left the state in a devastating financial mess, and he had the gumption to actually run for an open U.S. Senate seat against Mark Warner (D), who got 65 percent of the vote.