We're getting close to the one-month mark on the two major 2009 elections: New Jersey, which we walked through a bit before, and Virginia, which I'll stroll through today (with, I promise, Bonus Joe Wilson at the end).

The Virginia governor's race pits Creigh Deeds, Democrat (and not a character on "The Office") against Bob McDonnell, Republican. McDonnell is the until-recently Attorney General of the state (he resigned to run for governor); Deeds is the guy who lost the 2005 AG race to McDonnell by .01 percent of the vote (that's 350 Virginians). Once Deeds beat big-time Democratic fundraiser and former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe in the primary this year, the big story here was supposed to be the Rematch Madness: moderate Democrat versus conservative Republican, your typical Virginian show-down of the past decade.

It wasn't a particularly spicy race until very recently, when McDonnell's college thesis was recovered and posted online by the Washington Post and several other media outlets. What's the big deal, right? Everybody writes stuff in college that they later regret, and it might seem unfair to hold someone's old assignment against him so many, many years later...

...unless that old "assignment" was a self-directed thesis addressing "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family," [in PDF] offering within it many of the same guidelines that have driven McDonnell's political career up to this point -- and, alongside those, some rather shocking, 1950s-style consideration of the role and definition of the family. Let's just say that Bob McDonnell is not the guy you want to go to for support if you're thinking of getting a divorce or coming out of the closet.

That controversy as of yet doesn't seem to have harmed McDonnell that much, but it's certainly made his opponent's support stronger (and is expected to have more of an impact as Deeds takes off the gloves). A Washington Post poll last week showed McDonnell getting 51 percent of the vote if the election were held today, whereas Deeds would get 47 percent -- a staggering improvement from a month ago, when the numbers were 54-39 respectively.

Virginia's current governor, Tim Kaine, is a Democrat and was rumored to be on the short-list for Vice President. He's also the current head of the Democratic National Committee, a sign both that he's a rising party star and that the party has its sights set on recapturing Virginia as a Democratic stronghold going forward. If that sounds crazy, consider, for a moment, the shifting demographics of Virginia. The high concentration around the D.C. area -- still one of the most consistently "blue" spaces in America -- has been overwhelming the traditionally red, rural votes since around 2000, when Mark Warner defeated conservative candidate Mark Earley for Governor. Both of Virginia's senators are Democrats right now -- Warner and Jim Webb replaced John Warner, an arguably moderate Republican, and George Allan, not arguably conservative. In 2008, it went blue for Obama. The state has had Democratic tendencies bubbling beneath the surface for a while.

Last month's polls showed that some Virginians were re-thinking that vote; Obama's Deeds support is now a mixed blessing. Two-thirds of those polled said Obama's endorsement either had no effect or a negative effect on their support for Deeds, and the president has so far contributed only a rally and a radio ad to the campaign. Deeds, who's very weak on transportation issues -- something that Northern Virginians in partcular need to hear about -- is running an overall cash disadvantage to McDonnell, although his fundraising has been better for the last two quarters.

It would be a black eye to the Democratic establishment to lose Virginia. Since it still seems likely that Virginians will choose McDonnell, I'm very curious to see whether the president decides to get directly involved in the race or whether he and his staff (and I'm thinking of Rahm Emanuel) decide to cut their losses and make any potential loss less traceable to the president's popularity. McDonnell still has a cash advantage of around $1 million, so a little attention from the president -- say, in the form of a massively expensive dinner or a NoVa-targeted TV spot -- would likely be welcome.

My money, right now, is on Deeds to come up with a transportation message, hammer McDonnell on his thesis ideas, and pull out a squeaker comparable to McDonnell's own win back in 2006, but I'm pretty concerned that this 2008 Blue State is going to get a little purpled.

The next Big Thing to watch for in this race is the endorsement announcement of former governor Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, who's recently met with both McDonnell and Deeds. Wilder, the nation's first black governor, and McDonnell "have had a good working relationship for years," which might convince Wilder to sit this election out. He's done it before (in 1997), and it helped James Gilmore, a Republican, get elected. An announcement of some kind is expected from Wilder by the end of the week.

Speaking of endorsements, it's time now for your promised Joe Wilson: Though the candidates above have amassed the predictable endorsements (Deeds is still waiting on former governor Wilder to decide whether he'll speak up or not), one candidate in Virginia solicited a rather surprising endorsement. Here's a little taste:
That's right! A Political Action Committee organized by the Virginia House Speaker Bill Howell solicited a "give us some money" e-mail from Rep. Joe "You Lie!" Wilson this week. It's a doozy, charging that Virginia is about to be "swarmed" by "liberal allies" like -- gasp!! -- ACORN and labor unions. Woe! The Washington Post, whose Virginia election coverage is very solid, has the full message.

This is what we refer to as "calling out the small guns."