I say he was a bad candidate based on observation (please read my earlier post). Also, the guy that ran against Warner 4 years ago also ran a bad campaign. I expected Kilgore to lose this election just by observing his TV advertisements and what I heard on the radio. Despite his poor debating skills I believe he could have won this election if he had chosen better people to run his campaign but then that was his mistake.
I concede now:
Office: Governor
Precincts Reporting: 2138 of 2426 (88.13%)
Registered Voters: 4,451,771 Total Voting: 1,698,191 Voter Turnout: 38.15 %
Candidates Party Vote Totals Percentage
T M Kaine Democratic 871,306 51.31%
J W Kilgore Republican 788,562 46.44%
H R Potts Jr Independent 36,992 2.18%
Write Ins 1,331 0.08%
Vote Totals: 1,698,191
Who nominated this candidate though? Who supported him? Who voted for him?
More significantly, who did not support him, and who did not vote for him?
If our candidate loses, it's as much our fault as his.
I agree that the campaign wasn't good but don't think that Kilgore himself was a bad candidate or he wouldn't have been the only R to win statewide in '01 .. he was not well served in this campaign. My very R-leaning son was so aggrevated by his tv ads that he wanted to vote for his opponent, whoever it was ! (I made sure he didn't get to the polls today)