I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

(Via The Campaign Spot) Not that they would ever, ever come out and say so – but when the one truly hopeful poll that one’s had in months for a particular campaign reverses itself the next time it’s taken again, well. Let’s just say that a handy excuse would be… handy.

The bad poll news comes on the heels of a story circulating in Democratic circles today that the Democratic National Committee is reportedly holding on to its $5 million financial commitment to the Deeds campaign out of concern that the Deeds campaign has focused too much of its attention on the controversial Bob McDonnell 1989 grad-school thesis setting out a hardline social-conservative political agenda for his budding political career and not enough on putting down a framework for what a Deeds administration would do for Virginia.

That’s so clever it’s almost diabolical. Remember: Deeds is the guy that the national party had the least preexisting ties with, so there’s less people to offend here. And telling him to come up with a new campaign narrative may sound reasonable – until you remember that we’re down to one month before the election. Also, five million dollars is suddenly looking like a lot more money, in this era of anemic Democratic fundraising; obviously, spending it on an election is what it’s there for… but throwing it away on an election is usually not considered smart.

Again, there’s no possible way that the DNC will ever admit that they’re going to cut Deeds loose. They’ll in fact angrily deny it. But ask yourself: in their shoes, would you be throwing good money after Creigh?