During 2009, Bob McDonnell ran a campaign many political observers hailed as a model for the post-Obama Republican, with good reason. His Northern Virginia roots combined with conservative values and tech savvy to create a promising Republican who stuck to pocketbook issues in a purple state and made inroads with the independents and women McCain lost to Obama.

The campaign was smart, careful, on-message and mature, even when under sustained fire from the Washington Post and Creigh Deeds (in almost equal measure). The campaign will remain a model, but with the issuance of one proclamation in one week, the man himself sustained what veteran Virginia political observer Larry Sabato called a “deep unnecessary self-inflicted wound.”