As a young Army lieutenant stationed in Germany, Bob McDonnell made the Guinness Book of World Records. He organized his hospital unit to carry a 120-pound woman on a stretcher on a record-breaking trek -- 93.4 miles in 32 hours.Thirty-two years later, McDonnell is doing a different kind of heavy lifting, as he seeks to break Democrats' eight-year hold on Virginia's governorship.
Since word surfaced seven weeks ago of his controversial graduate-school thesis, McDonnell has sought to focus the campaign on jobs creation in an economy battered by a deep recession.
That strategy appears to be working. Recent polls show McDonnell with enough of a lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, that he is cautioning supporters against overconfidence.
"I've told my staff to forget the polls," McDonnell said in a recent interview in Verona, at a picnic sponsored by U.S. Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th.
"We've got a hard-working opponent. We are opposed by President Obama and Tim Kaine," the governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, "who have considerable resources. The only way we are going to win is to stay focused on our message and do an absolutely A-plus get-out-the-vote effort."