Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, brought an entourage of party candidates for state office to Floyd Friday night a visit to the Country Store and the Friday Night Jamboree. Kaine, who fancies himself as a harmonica man, took to the stage to jam with Katie and Bubbatones (above) after Creigh Deeds (left), along with hopefuls for Lt. Governor and Attorney General, gave a round of campaign speeches.

A pre-election stop at the Jamboree has become a rule of party politics in Virginia, especially for Democrats who need any edge they can get in this predominately Republican part of the state. Deeds faces an uphill campaign for governor against Republican Bob McDonnel, who narrowly defeated the Bath County Senator in a run for attorney general last time around. With the election coming up Tuesday, Deeds trails in most statewide polls

In her closing arguments for the sentencing phase of the four-day trial of Jeffrey Martin Young this week, Commonwealth’s Attorney Stephanie Shortt said Young’s brutal, unprovoked attack of Ciera Sowers Boyd in the parking lot of Slaughter’s Supermarket on Jan. 30, 2008, marked a “loss of innocence” for Floyd County.

Slaughters, Shortt said, is more than a grocery store. It’s a community gathering place, a location where people see friends, discuss issues and exhange stories about family and life. When Young ran Boyd down with his mother’s car and then beat her first with a wooden log and then a bat-like club, it not only left her scarred physically and emotionally but shocked the community to its core. She told a jury of six men and six women that she is afraid now to go shopping alone, avoids strangers and fears walking through parking lots.

The jury convicted Young of malicious wounding in the case, along with three other counts that included threatening sheriff’s deputies and interferring with their duties and recommended a sentence of 16 years, eight months. If Judge Howe Brown accepts the recommendation, as most Virginia judges do, when he sentences Young on Feb. 8, 2010, the 32-year-old man will stay in prison until he is 49. Virginia no longer allows parole. The time you get is the time you serve

Christianburg attorney Fred Kellerman and Roanoke-based co-counsel Neil Horn tried to convince the jury that Young should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Horn successfully won an acquittal for Young in the hit-and-run murder of Roanoke County Attorney Tom Farrell but Floyd County juries don’t buy excuses for criminal behavior. The Sowers family had hoped for a longer sentence (he could have received up to 45 years) but the Copper Hill resident with a long history of bizarre and dangerous behavior will be off the street for at least 16 years and will remain jailed until his sentencing in February.

There’s little doubt that Young should not be on the street. First diagnosed with a “psychotic disorder” in 2003, he has a long record of dangerous behavior. He choked his mother until she was unconcious. He poured gasoline on her bed. He cut off his hand with a chain saw — which may or may not have been an accident. He declared himself to be Jesus Christ with a small band of followers.

Yet the mental health system continued to put him back on the street. That system failed and now its up to the prison system to protect society from Jeffery Martin Young.

As my story in today’s Floyd Press reports, the county’s Economic Development Authority (EDA) Tuesday approved issuing a formal “final demand for closing” for the twice-aborted sale of 51.5 acres of undeveloped land in the largely-empty Commerce Park on Christiansburg Pike to Data Knight 365 (DK3), a company whose ownership and resources remain in doubt.

What does a “final demand for closing” mean? Can’t say for sure because EDA chairman Jack Russell refused to provide details after the authority met in its third closed-door “executive session” in 34 days to discuss the controversial deal that has generated much debate and more than a few jokes among Floyd County residents.

Russell responded with “I really don’t know” when I asked what the “final demand for closing” entailed. Was there a timetable? Russell refused to answer. Did the EDA set a new deadline after DK3 missed closing dates on Sept. 1 and a previous “final” closing date of Oct. 23? No answer.

I later learned timetables were discussed in the closed-door session. It’s not the first time Russell lied about the activities of the EDA. I doubt it will be the last.

Russell apparently believes the expenditure of county taxpayer dollars is not the business of the public that pays those taxes and bills. The EDA is a group of appointed volunteers with the power to cut multi-million dollar deals involving county property and funds with little or no oversight from the Board of Supervisors, the ones elected to represent the citizens. Because Virginia’s Open Meetings Act allows closed-door discussion on certain real estate deals and legal matters, Russell manipulates the law to assure that much of what the EDA does is hidden from the public — so much so that some EDA members say privately they are worried that they have “pushed the envelope” of the law with some of the discussions and decisions the authority has made in secret.

Getting more upset lately: Too tense in situations that require calm, too easily angered when confronted and too disposed to lose control.

Maybe the stress comes from being too close to things. Maybe it stems from caring too much about what happens around us. Maybe it’s just frustration with the hidden agendas that seem to be so much a part of life nowadays.

Maybe. Not sure.

Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe it’s a case of just being wound too tight right now. Maybe a break is required. Maybe a vacation is in order. Maybe all that’s needed is a good night’s sleep.

Maybe.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds campaigns in Floyd

As Virginia’s state and local election campaigns head into the final week, Democrat Creigh Deeds continues to sink in the polls and many voters, looking at the two choices available for governor, feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. They don’t know what the hell to do when they go into the polls.

But most just want the campaigns to end. The mud-slinging has reached an all-time high this election season and polls show a majority of voters are sick and tired of the flood of negative ads.

The Washington Post reports today:

Republican Robert F. McDonnell carries a double-digit lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the final week of the campaign for Virginia governor, according to a new Washington Post poll.

The Republican, briefly buffeted in the polls by voters’ initial reaction to the publication of his 1989 graduate school thesis, has rebounded to big advantages on the top issues, particularly taxes, and is now seen as the more effective leader, more honest and more empathetic. McDonnell is also buoyed by support outside Northern Virginia, where he is outperforming all other top-of-the-ticket Republican candidates this decade.

Statewide, McDonnell leads Deeds among likely voters by 55 to 44 percent. McDonnell, who narrowly defeated Deeds in the race for attorney general four years ago, has been above 50 percent among likely voters in all four Post polls in the campaign.

The poll shows that Deeds has been unable to shift the dynamics of a race that in recent weeks appeared to be slipping away from him. Despite a concerted effort to reverse a widespread voter perception that his campaign has been largely negative, more than six in 10 polled see the Democrat as running a mainly negative effort. By contrast, most see McDonnell’s campaign as a predominantly positive one.

Deeds has also been unable to excite his supporters and close the dramatic gap in enthusiasm McDonnell has held from the start. About a quarter of Deeds voters say they are supporting him “not too” enthusiastically or “not at all” enthusiastically. More than nine in 10 of those who back McDonnell are “very” enthusiastic or “fairly” enthusiastic about the Republican.

Locally, most voter attention is focused on the Supervisor race in the normally-Democratic Courthouse District between Republican Case Clinger and former Floyd Town Manager Mike Maslaney, a Democrat running as an independent. Outgoing supervisor Jerry Boothe, a Democrat turned Republican, is supporting Clinger and Masleney has some baggage from his involvement, as a member of the county Economic Development Authority, in the controversial data center deal that went south last Friday when Data Knight 365 failed to come up with a $100,000 down payment on purchase of land for the deal and documents delivered to the county left more questions than answers.

Several voters who live outside the Courthouse District tell me they might not vote this year because neither McDonnell or Deeds gives them any reason for support.