Update 10-27: Obama arrives on campus around 5 pm. Not sure if the event will be live streamed. It could be at cnn.com.
President Barack Obama will appear at the Ted Constant Convocation Center at Old Dominion University in Norfolk next week to stump for gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, his campaign has confirmed.
Last week the Deeds campaign confirmed that Obama would stump for him again somewhere in Virginia on Oct. 27. The time for the ODU event has not yet been announced and no other details were available shortly after 11 a.m. VP
Deeds is behind:
Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, trying to narrow a 8- to 9-percentage-point deficit in the Virginia governor's race, is bringing in his biggest gun: President Barack Obama.
The first Democrat to win Virginia in a presidential race in 44 years, Obama made his highest-profile entry into the race yet with a new ad in which he exhorts his 2008 supporters to "get fired up" for Deeds, who is running against Republican Bob McDonnell.
And on Oct. 27, Obama conducts his first downstate campaign rally for Deeds at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.
Coming exactly one week before Election Day, the presidential visit - and those of Bill Clinton and Al Gore over the past week - are an attempt to galvanize essential Democratic groups and like-minded independents whose response to Deeds has been tepid so far. WTOP
Update: Video below Update: Live streamed at Cnn.com Obama will speak tonight at 7:10 at a rally for Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds at the Hilton McLean in Tysons Corner, Virginia. Deeds is running for governor against republican Robert McDonnell. I'll post video if it comes available.
One thing about "Deeds Country," as the swath of rural Virginia extending through the Shenandoah Valley and down into the southwest where state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has been touring this week has been dubbed by his campaign: It apparently isn't Obama Country.
Outside stops in the more urban settings of Charlottesville, Danville and Blacksburg, many of the 20 visits Deeds (D-Bath) is making on a nine-day campaign swing that begun Sunday are in places where President Obama was beaten handily by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Appomattox, Hillsville, Tazewell, Floyd. All are areas where Obama did not break 35 percent of the vote.
Obama's victory in Virginia came because he won big in the state's suburban areas, particularly in Northern Virginia, where thousands of new and energized voters joined the rolls in the months leading up to November's election and then cast ballots for the Democrat.
That mirrored other recent successful Democratic strategies, including those of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Sen. James Webb, who both used sophisticated mathematical modeling to devise winning strategies rooted in the suburbs.
So a big summer push through the state's rural west -- instead of the developments, community pools and shopping malls of Virginia's densely populated regions -- has some progressives nervous about their candidate's strategy. Wapo
Polls show that McDonnell is ahead by double digits, which is probably why Obama is rallying:
For the second time in as many weeks, a published poll is showing Republican Bob McDonnell with a double-digit lead for governor over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds.
Public Policy Polling yesterday put McDonnell ahead of Deeds, 51 percent to 37 percent. Four weeks ago, the Raleigh, N.C.-based survey group reported McDonnell leading Deeds, 49 percent to 43 percent.
