The Washington Post is not a bit happy about its artless candidate in this year’s Virginia gubernatorial race, Creigh Deeds, who in the face of constantly being ribbed about the issue has refused to substantively address his party’s fetish with “cap-and-trade” legislation. It is one of its top three domestic priorities of its leader, President Obama. The man that Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell are running to succeed, Gov. Tim Kaine, also happens to be pushing cap-and-trade as the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Given the undeniable widespread economic impact that cap-and-trade would have on a coal state such as Virginia, McDonnell is pressing Deeds on the issue, asking him if he is with his party, or his people.

So in an editorial today that borders on sniveling the Post rants about how cap-and-trade is nothing on which the governor would have any influence anyway.

Rather, he has let McDonnell put him on the defensive on cap-and-trade, card-check and other inside-the-Beltway issues over which a Virginia governor, despite running the nation’s 12th most populous state, has as much sway as he does in determining the tides.

What a curious analogy. What the Post means is that the governor has about as much influence over a federal cap-and-trade bill as said bill would have over sea levels. Which — while I obviously disagree when it comes to the governorship — is to say “nothing.”