Mocking a Candidate's Stutter: Creigh Deeds Gets An Apology

Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, scored a coup by winning an endorsement from Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television. But Johnson didn't do McDonnell any favors the other day at a rally in Hampton Roads, when she made fun of the way Democrat Creigh Deeds talks.

Here's video footage taken by the Deeds campaign's McDonnell "tracker" (both sides have them to keep tabs on the opposition and, perhaps, capture the perfect "gotcha" moment).



Deeds doesn't have a constant stutter, but he sometimes speaks haltingly. Deeds adviser Mo Elleithee called the video "offensive to a lot of Virginians who truly do suffer from speech impediments" and called on McDonnell to "do the right thing and apologize" for Johnson's remarks.

McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin e-mailed me this statement: "Creigh Deeds has never had a problem voicing his false attacks about Bob McDonnell. What he has had difficulty expressing is any positive vision for Virginia's future. Democratic businesswoman Sheila Johnson was noting that fact. Why the Deeds campaign wants to attack a prominent supporter of both Governor Tim Kaine and President Barack Obama, while reminding voters that she strongly supports Bob McDonnell for governor, is beyond us."

(Update: Johnson has apologized. "I made reference to Creigh Deeds's inability to clearly communicate effective solutions to the serious problems facing Virginia. I shouldn't have done it in the manner in which I did, and for that I apologize for any offense he, or others, may have taken," she said in a statement).

Elleithee acknowledged on a call with reporters that the campaign circulated the video to liberal bloggers. Why would Deeds' own campaign do that? Elleithee declined to say, but here are two guesses:

One, the Deeds campaign believes it it reflects badly on McDonnell, who was listening to Johnson at the Friday rally. And two, the video feeds into the Deeds campaign narrative that he is a diamond in the rough -- unpolished but genuine.

As Elleithee put it: "Creigh's the first person to admit that he's not the smoothest talker. He's the first person to admit that he sometimes stumbles over his words. If you're looking for someone who's polished, Creigh's not the first person who comes to mind. He's not polished, but he's authentic."

Or, as Deeds himself commented at a campaign stop in northern Virginia: "If it's about being smooth or being a slick communicator, I'm never going to win that discussion. But I work as hard as I can to be honest and forthright and tell people what I think . . ."

Jim McClure, a board member of the National Stuttering Association, posted a response to the Johnson video at the group's Facebook page. He said the association had a question for Johnson:

"Do you also make fun of people in wheelchairs, or do you believe that stuttering is the only disability it's okay to ridicule? The fact is that stuttering is a brain-function disorder that's mostly physiological rather than psychological, and is often genetic in origin. It has nothing to do with intelligence, temperament or leadership ability. Stuttering affects 1 percent of the population, including 77,000 residents of Virginia. People who stutter have succeeded in all walks of life and include actors (James Earl Jones), business leaders (Jack Welch), journalists (John Stossel) and politicians such as Winston Churchill, Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Virginia)."

Update: My colleague Bruce Drake reports on the latest poll of the Virginia race. McDonnell has an 11-point lead.