Politics breeds the oddest of couples. So it is in Virginia, where it seems Al Gore is flying today to help out Democrat candidate for governor, Creigh Deeds. This comes only days after Deeds aggressively fended off attacks over his previously expressed support for a signature issue of his party — “cap-and-trade” energy rationing — by disparaging it and its costs. In this week’s debate, he went so far as to call claims that he supports cap-and-trade legislation an example of his opponent lying. Instead, he insisted, he opposes it. Gasp.

Which of Gore’s regular name-calling applies to Deeds, then? “Denier”? “Delayer”? “Big Oil-funded shill”?

This does raise an important nuance in the political discussion. A recent talking point among the establishment media has emerged along the lines that “Virginia is really a purple state, voting against the party in the White House as a practice, so a Republican victory taking back the governorship doesn’t really say anything. It’s New Jersey that matters if you’re looking for a message or trend.”

Well, that is indeed convenient — with an independent moving up in the Garden State at the expense of the Republican candidate, who as a not-overly-conservative alternative was selected to the palpable disappointment of much of his state-party base. But it’s even more helpful to certain policy discussions — given that key, electorate-dividing issues are quite plainly at play in Virginia, and not so much in New Jersey. Chief among these issues is cap-and-trade, which Republican nominee Bob McDonnell has wisely made central to his campaign, putting Deeds on the defensive, given his expressed support for the idea.

Deeds is insisting that he is a “Mark Warner Democrat.” Senator Warner has been equally cagey about saying whether he supports cap-and-trade. Possibly his increasing role in the campaign, in ads and on the stump, can prompt a response to help clarify the ongoing confusion about Deeds’s stance on Waxman-Markey.

Regardless, I suggest that no one should accept the emerging narrative that it’s really only New Jersey that will tell us anything about the prevailing political winds. Instead, it is clear that Obama’s agenda is on the table only in Virginia, not the . . . unique electoral environment . . . that is New Jersey. And so far — whatever candidate Deeds’s real position on the issue — it is clear that cap-and-trade is not received well by Old Dominion voters. That’s on the ballot, even if Mr. Obama is not.