WHO STEPPED UP: Three-way races change campaign rules.

It’s been true about as long as multi-field races have existed. What can win you a head-to-head race can lose a three-way race, and vice versa.

All negative campaign ads have some backfire to them. They have to. Voters don’t like them, and they don’t appreciate the candidate who launches them.

Good candidates with good political consultants know this. In a two-way race, it rarely matters, since the damage done to the victim of an attack ad is far worse than the damage done to the one doing the attacking. And, where else are voters going to go? Stay home? Possible. But much more likely they vote for the lesser of two evils in a political campaign that has become markedly negative.

Creigh Deeds did exactly what the third person should do when the other two are beating each other up. Duck! Stand back. Let them pummel each other.

Brian Moran launched a full-frontal assault on Terry McAuliffe in the closing weeks of the campaign. Though McAuliffe had a large lead to that point, it was mostly based on name ID and that he was really the only one heavily advertising. Once Moran and Deeds started their TV, things would tighten. Plus, McAuliffe’s Clinton connections hurt him even among Democrats. Bill lost repeatedly in Virginia, and Hillary got trounced in Virginia’s primary a year ago. His lead was bound to soften.

Moran’s attack had the intended effect on McAuliffe. McAuliffe’s polls dropped like a rock. But they didn’t flock to Moran. Voters bypassed him and discovered the other guy in the race. At the same time, the Washington Post endorsed Deeds, and though that wasn’t the main cause of Deeds’ resurgence, it did help with fundraising right when Deeds needed the boost.

That was where Deeds stepped up. He parlayed things he had very little control over (other candidates’ ads, newspapers’ fickle choices) and funneled it into raising significant dollars for TV ads. Smart ads too, that talked about Deeds the person and avoiding using his voice for the most part. No regional ploys for this ad - Deeds wanted statewide appeal while hoping the two Northern Virginians split Northern Virginia.

McAuliffe’s miscues included ignoring Deeds until it was too late and trying to stay “above the fray” - it’s almost impossible to stay above the fray when you’re the one with the highest negatives in the race.

Moran’s miscues included leading the attack charge against McAuliffe himself. A political action committee, special interest group or other elected officials who endorsed Moran could’ve done the dirty work. In Virginia, we’ve seen candidates from Jo Ann Davis to Jerry Kilgore win multi-person races simply by being the one not involved in mud, either throwing or catching.

Creigh Deeds and his political consultants likely planned for this all along. Ignoring calls from fellow Democrats to drop out from his last place position, Deeds instead stayed clean, campaigned hard in areas of Virginia the other guys were not focused on, conserved his money, and struck when his one opportunity to shine was handed to him.

Winning a three-way slugfest because the other two guys knocked each other out isn’t sexy, and doesn’t show any moxie for winning an upcoming head-to-head match with Bob McDonnell.

But it does show a smart understanding of history, a keen understanding of your opponents, and a professional level of patience that only the best politicians and political consultants are disciplined enough to possess.

Who Stepped Up: A good return is better than a fantastic serve.

Never thought you could learn about politics from watching Grand Slam Tennis, did you? Watch pros on the court and what will you see? Both usually can smash the ball and slam an ace at will.

But who wins? Winning on your serve isn’t enough. The winner is the one who can return the opponent’s serve and score a point. Anyone can hit hard; good counterpunches usually win.

I saw that strategy employed recently in Norfolk in a debate between two candidates for Norfolk’s Commonwealth’s Attorney, Greg Underwood and John Coggeshall.

Underwood spoke first and burned up his time touting his extensive resume. “Look at my qualifications and then look at my opponent’s qualifications,” said Underwood, calling himself a “career prosecutor.” He bragged about his record in the prosecutor’s office as the “Senior Deputy in the office right now.”

Not a bad opening punch. However, a good political consultant on the receiving end would have seen that coming and thought, “How can we make his biggest strength into a liability.”

Coggeshall and his team did just that and returned a blistering shot. Knowing that Underwood loves to say, “I’ve been a prosecutor in Norfolk since 2001,” Coggeshall collected some statistics. Since 2001, robberies are up 12%, aggravated assaults are up 37%, and murders are up an astounding 55%.

Coggeshall then asked for a show of hands of how many people are happy with the current level of crime in Norfolk. Not a hand went up.

Coggeshall is a Republican, Norfolk is a very Democratic town, and that audience was no Republican breakfast. But Coggeshall scored big.

Underwood isn’t an incumbent, but by campaigning as the heir apparent with eight years working in the office, he opened himself up to every criticism that can be launched about the current crime level in Norfolk.

The inevitable question for Underwood’s political consultant is, “how can he do better than his own record?” In a city and an electorate where Underwood has all the advantages, his campaign message forced him into playing defense.

And that’s a bad position to be playing from with a special election date of March 10.

All because Coggeshall knew how to return a serve.

Who Stepped In It: If it didn’t happen so often, it wouldn’t be so frustrating to watch. We in Hampton Roads are lucky enough to see two examples at the same time. We get to watch two once-popular ideas get battered into unpopular ideas on the local and national level.

Locally, light-rail enjoyed consistent positive supermajority support in poll after poll, especially coming off the $4 per gallon gasoline of last summer. A good political consultant would prepare the path from support to the light-rail launch with good polling, a grasp of the issues involved, and working with local media to keep the 65% idea from becoming a multi-million dollar punching bag.

Nationally, we’re watching an economic stimulus package from a new, very popular president go from majority popular support to weak minority support, with Independent voters turning their backs on economic stimulus, even in a recession.

How could either of these programs move forward without even the simplest political strategy? A school board candidate does more political preparation than the proponents of light-rail have done, and as a result, the message of light-rail as been totally lost for the near future.

Four months ago, light-rail was a reasonable alternative for high fuel prices. Today, it’s a mismanaged mishmash of cost overruns and incompetence of subcontractors when count of underwater pilings needing to be removed was 13 times higher than they counted.

Any poll taken today about the future of light-rail will be nothing more than the public’s opinion of the mistakes in Norfolk, and citizens, understandably, likely won’t have much confidence in things getting better.

A good political consultant knows polls don’t just take the public’s temperature. Polls lay out a road map for public relations. What messages move public opinion? What messages are effective? What attacks draw the most impact? Which strategy do we need to develop to benefit our message and protect against our weakest points.

Any good political candidate does this before he or she ever begins a campaign. Light-rail advocates risk waiting until public opinion solidifies beyond reasonable change while the media, usually on their side for transportation solutions, continues to make justifiable criticisms at what they’ve usually supported.

The Virginian-Pilot attacking light-rail is like Ronald Reagan attacking jelly beans. You have to be asleep at the political wheel to let things get that far out of control.

President Obama is learning the same lesson. Voters are supportive of government efforts to create jobs, but they have little patience for big payoffs that they easily understand will not create any jobs. Ask Bill Clinton how voters embraced midnight basketball as a way to fight crime in 1994, the year voters took Congressional control from the Democrats.

Obama let Congressional leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi manage the PR strategy of the stimulus package, and the bill is on the verge of collapse. Obama now has stepped in to stop the bleeding and save the bill.

How do you go from super support to low approval? Sit on your lead. Now light-rail and the stimulus plan have a much harder job of rebuilding lost support.

Who Stepped Up:  No doubt that November elections for local office mean higher costs, new demands for broader advertising, and a lot more commotion on the ballot.

Some candidates, like Virginia Beach’s Scott Taylor, are banking on the Internet, email, and social media like Facebook and MySpace to replace the traditional advertising sources of television, radio, newspaper and mail. Someday that political tactic may work, but in 2008 it won’t.

That’s why Virginia Beach mayoral candidate Will Sessoms’ 8-page booklet, which was recently sent as a Virginian-Pilot insert, was a great political strategy.  Its execution wasn’t perfect, but the printed focus amid all the hype of the Internet and all the cost of television was sound.

Here’s why:

- Four years ago, 175,000 Virginia Beach voters went to the polls in November.  Political experts are projecting that number to climb as high as 200,000 this year.  There is no way the Internet reaches that broad a voter pool on the local level.  Website hits are nowhere near that.

- Internet usage is still low among older voters, your most reliable voters.

- Print advertising still works best in local politics.  Voters read newspapers and read those political mail pieces that flood mailboxes in November.  Those mailers build name ID in a cost-effective way that television can only do with repetition (meaning cost).

- The idea of an 8-page booklet is a smart political tactic.  It’s meant to be kept and not tossed like a single piece of political mail or a political ad in the daily newspaper.

All is not rosy with the strategy, though.  In delivering the insert as part of the newspaper, a booklet can get lost among the coupons and other countless ad booklets in a Sunday paper, and that is a real problem.  Better to invest in directly mailing it than take that chance.

Who Stepped In It: In her current political campaign, Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf launched an attack on her opponent, Will Sessoms, on a $10,000 campaign contribution from Amerigroup. Her shot didn’t stick, but it earned a scathing editorial from The Virginian-Pilot, whose endorsement may prove crucial in this race. The editorial board questioned her judgment in attacking a major employer to score political points.

Oberndorf’s miscue was in her political strategy, and it serves a good lesson to political consultants and political campaign managers.

Oberndorf has three opponents — Sessoms, John Moss and Scott Taylor. Multiple-person political races are worlds different from one-on-one races.

Sessoms, the city’s former vice mayor, has raised almost half-a-million dollars and has been advertising for weeks. His name ID will be sky-high come Election Day. The last thing Oberndorf should do is give Sessoms more attention, and name ID, with careless political tactics.

Here’s why:

- Oberndorf benefits from higher vote totals for Moss and/or Taylor because they’ll be pulling away anti-incumbent votes from Sessoms.

- Moss and Taylor are mostly absent from the airwaves and the newspapers. Oberndorf needs them in the media so their name ID rises quickly.

- By attacking Sessoms, Oberndorf makes the race seem like a two-person race, which is exactly opposite of what she needs. It perfectly suits Sessoms needs.

- Moss and Oberndorf served on City Council together. There should be plenty for Oberndorf to say about Moss. A tactical attack on Moss would raise Moss’ visibility and put him in the center of the campaign conversation. The same goes for Taylor. Dig a little.

- A good political consultant would have adopted a political strategy for Oberndorf of strengthening the spotlight on the lower-tier candidates and developing tactics to accomplish that. That way, whether they raise money or not, they’re visible and viable.

In politics, decide early on what you need the playing field to look like, develop a political strategy to accomplish that, and implement tactics that move you toward that goal.

Who Stepped Up: As political campaigns come and go, so do political promises. A good political consultant narrows those promises to those that, by their very nature, make the candidate look good and the opponent look bad.

McCain’s advisors, and sometimes even McCain himself, have floated the notion of 4 years and out for the Presidency.

On the plus side, it energizes McCain’s image as a reformer. He can say “I’ll get things done in 4 years and not 8″ and play a little Ross Perot, since Perot made the same pledge years ago.

It may help defuse the age issue. Adding 4 years to his current age doesn’t have the same bite as a Democratic attack adding 8.

It also positions himself well against Obama, who seems to have been running for President since he took his Senate oath. McCain can look like he’s taking the job out of duty and public service, and not in some planned power grab.

On the down side, it focuses some attention on McCain’s age issue. Pledging to only serve one term might encourage some to ask “will he get to have a choice?”

On balance, it would be a wise political move. It would quickly get many many Republicans working hard for McCain, knowing that the 2012 slot would still be open if he wins.

Remember this! Back to back 2-term Presidents of the same political party just don’t happen in the modern era. McCain’s folks recognize this, and may have given him the perfect way to win independent voters, who care more about accomplishments than rhetoric.

Just think of the Presidential Debates. McCain pledges one term. Obama? Obama will get trapped in looking like he’d want every last minute of those 8 years being President, and America won’t like it.

McCain should make the pledge.

Who Stepped In It: Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, Virginia, should’ve known better. The 7-member Portsmouth City Council could’ve approved millions of financing dollars for her $65 million conference center venture, had she used some political forethought.

Lucas had strong supporters on the Portsmouth City Council. So strong that two council members had direct financial and political interests in the project.  Consequently, they could not vote and abstained.  Where was her political consultant? In a 7-member Council, losing two likely “yes” votes is a one-way ticket to political desolation.

The remaining Council members voted 2-3 against the proposal.  Were the relatively small investments of Councilmembers Whitehurst and Randell so vital that it was worth making Council approval a mountain too high to climb?

Political consultants who deal with City Councils, or any elected bodies that deal with political issues, should shape their strategy around three thoughts concerning the vote:

- how many do we have?

- how many could be persuaded?

- how many will oppose us and how loudly will they do it?

Lucas needed 4 “yes” votes.  She threw 2 away, and it turned an approval into a denial.