The Richmond Times-Dispatch had an interesting interview with Creigh Deeds, who lost the 2009 Governor’s race to Bob McDonnell. The interview merely displayed that Deeds is still taking the loss pretty hard.
Seated behind a modest desk in the two-room law office he occupies next to Genia’s Beauty Salon on Main Street in downtown Hot Springs, Deeds didn’t refer to McDonnell by name during an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It’s an indication, perhaps, that devoting years of your life to a dream that doesn’t come true warrants a longer recovery period.
“I’m surviving, doing the best I can,” he said. “I mean, what choice do I have, right? You got to keep going. You just have to keep moving.”
In the weeks after the election, Deeds, 52, hasn’t spent a night outside his home in rural Bath County. Public appearances have been rare — a couple of visits to Charlottesville, a Christmas shopping trip to Roanoke, a drive to attend a funeral.
Instead, Deeds has set to work rebuilding the life he left behind when he became a candidate — resurrecting a dormant law practice, repairing fences on the family farm, getting a cranky stove to provide warmth on a winter’s day in the Allegheny Mountains.
“The toll on my family . . . there are things I’ll never get back and that hurts a whole lot,” he said. “A lot of personal stuff that I’m just not going to go into.
“Going forward, I’ve got a responsibility to represent people in the state Senate and rebuild a life that I had, that I have left,” he said. “There’s still a lot of figuring out to do. I’ve got to get back to basics.
Also, in the interview, Deeds did not mention whether or not he was running for re-election in 2011 for the state senate seat he currently holds. Hopefully, this will not intervene with his ability to serve the people of Charlottesville and Bath County.
