Candidate Profile: Creigh Deeds

Run down buildings. Boarded up factories. Near empty streets. It’s the Danville of 2009.

“This was a thriving downtown area and now you see so many of the store fronts are empty,” said Creigh Deeds as he walked through downtown Danville.

Deeds, the Democrat’s candidate for governor, used to call this home, some three decades ago.

WARREN: “You came here because?”

DEEDS: “There was opportunity.”

WARREN: “There was a job?”

DEEDS: “There was a job.”

He moved here right out of law school. He old firm is still open, something of a rarity in Southside Virginia.

At the time, Deeds was a bright eyed newlywed. The Bath County Native, who grew up on his grandparent’s farm, often tells the story about his send off to college.

“I was standing on the porch and my mother gave me four 20 dollar bills, 80 bucks, and that was my help from home,” he said.

Deeds made it through undergrad and law schoo and after a year in Danville, he moved back to Bath County. He obviously never forgot his roots.

As he walks the streets of Danville, you get the clear sense that rural Virginia shaped who this man is.

WARREN: “What did it instill inside Creigh Deeds?”

DEEDS: “That there were a great many things to be accomplished in life but I was going to have to work hard and get them accomplished myself. That there are no hand outs and I was expected to accomplish great things.”

That feeling has carried Creigh Deeds as he climbed his way up from delegate to state senator to candidate for attorney general. He almost won that race four years ago, losing by just 350 votes.

And he did score a huge political upset this summer, handily winning a three-way Democratic primary for the right for a rematch with his AG opponent.

No one saw it coming, in part because Creigh Deeds is an unlikely politician. He’s almost hesitant to meet new people. And he readily admits that his speaking style is, well, awkward.

WARREN: “How do you use that kinda plainspoken, some would say folksy mannerisms and speaking style to your advantage? Does it help you?

DEEDS: “I don’t know anything else. I am what I am. Whether it helps or hurts, it is who I am.”

WARREN: “I keep hearing your supporters and staffers saying we need Creigh to be Creigh. What does that mean?”

DEEDS: “Well, I don’t know, Jay. I have always not been a real loud guy.”

WARREN: “Do you think people underestimate you because of that?”

DEEDS: “Well, I think I have been underestimated a whole lot of times in my life. People sometimes view humility as sign of weakness and if people want to view me as weak, that’s okay. I’m going to keep working and keep getting things done.”

Which brings us back to Southside Virginia, a part of the commonwealth that is in desperate need of assistance, in need of someone who will fight for it. Creigh Deeds believes that’s his calling.

DEEDS: “I don’t think you get to choose the time to do something like this… I think the times choose you. This is the time that I am called to do this, to be the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia.”

WARREN: “As you look around at all of this, it’s pretty depressing.”

DEEDS: “Yeah, but there’s still hope. There are still solid walls and opportunity and vision and people who are willing to put in some elbow grease and make it work again. It is depressing, but we can get hung up on that and forget about the future and we can’t do that.”

Deeds can exude optimism even in the face of some bleak surroundings. This son of rural Virginia seems to never forget where he started life and it drives him where he’s going in the future.

“At the bottom of my heart I’m just a kid who grew up in the country that knows how to work hard and get things done,” he said.