During today’s Republican Governors Association press conference, RGA chair and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was asked whether he was encouraging GOP gubernatorial candidates to run against the president as they prepared for gubernatorial races in 2012.

“You broke the code,” McDonnell laughed. “Of course! When I ran in 2009, besides all the state issues, jobs, taxes and spending and so forth, I talked about how the people of Virginia did not want cap and trade and we did not want card-check. Big union issues, anti-coal issues that the president was pushing in Washington that were very bad for the commonwealth of Virginia. We ran commercials on it, I tied my opponent to President Obama on that, and people reacted that those were not good federal policies.”

“You first and foremost have to set a positive, uplifting, results-oriented vision for your state. That’s what people want. They’re so tired of the blame game here in Washington, and the negativity. This president has blamed Wall Street, he’s blamed Tea Party Republicans, he’s blamed House Republicans, George Bush. Last week he blamed the Founders for not giving him enough power. There’s a surplus of blame, and a deficit of results out of this president in Washington… So, what people want is the uplifting vision of what you can do for my state, but also, there is this president at the top of the ticket, and he will be on the ballot in every state. If he’s got policies that are bad for your state, the way card check and cap and trade were for my state, I can be virtually certain that our candidates running for governor in those states will be talking about those federal issues, and tying their Democratic opponents to those issues, and making them choose between the people of their state or the president’s policies.”