An interesting dispatch from Bath County, the home of gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds.

Just a few days after Deeds' June 9 primary victory, a stranger showed up at the Bath County Courthouse, asking to review Deeds personal and legal records.

Bath is the Virginia's second least populated county. There aren't a lot of strangers there. So the young man attracted a bit of attention from the clerks at the courthouse and then from Chris Singleton, Bath's part-time Commonwealth Attorney, who just happens to be Deeds' former law partner.

Who was he? He was Republican operative Jared Wheeler, and he spent a couple solid days sifting through records in the county courthouse. Though he attracted attention, the folks in Bath said they were careful to give Wheeler everything he asked for and be as helpful as they could.

While Democrats spent their spring preoccupied with a grueling, three-way primary for governor, Republicans quietly started opening field offices around the state to get ready for the November election.

The so-called "victory" offices -- a joint venture of the Republican Party of Virginia and the Republican National Committee -- will number 20 by the end of this week.

So far, about 30 staffers have been hired to identify voters, promote the Republican ticket (three statewide offices and House of Delegates) and eventually work to get people to the polls in all corners of the state. In Northern Virginia, offices are located in Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties.

By comparison, Democrats -- who were waiting on a nominee for the top of the ticket -- have about five coordinated campaign offices in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and Richmond.

Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds snagged a big name to head his "Business for Deeds" group today, joining Sen. Mark Warner on a perch overlooking the Capitals ice skating rink in Ballston to announce that Capitals majority owner Ted Leonsis has agreed to take the job.

Leonsis, a former AOL top executive who is also majority owner of the Washington Mystics is tight with Warner and has donated to both Democrats and Republicans (though, per the Virginia Public Access Project, more to Ds than to Rs). But as Warner joked at the event, Leonsis couldn't be persuaded to take on the same role for Warner's campaign, so it is something of a coup.

But Leonsis said he had met with Deeds and determined him he'd be good for business in the state, providing necessary improvements for education and transportation.

"He's someone who's listening and will follow the tradition that Mark and Tim [Kaine] laid out for us where this is a pro-business state," Leonsis said. "We know without jobs, without a strong economy none of the great programs that define the state are possible. I've agreed to chair this group, and we'll bring together a very broad base of people with lots of opinions."

U.S. Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) is pretty happy this week about his first major legislative victory in the House of Representatives: a bill that affords financial protections to deployed service personnel.

Connolly, who today was anointed president of the House's freshman class, pushed the bill (which, to the chagrin of his staff, he named the HADD Act, for Helping Active Duty Deployed) through in a speedy 10 days, he said.

The law makes it illegal for cell phone companies and landlords to charge early termination fees against service members who have to back out of contracts because they are deployed.

Connolly introduced the measure on behalf of a group of veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan who visited him on Capitol Hill.

"One guy told a horror story," he said. "It took him seven months of personally going to the office to get out of his telephone contract. Seven months," Connolly said. "And here's a man who has been called up by his country to serve."

The bill was made into an amendment to the defense authorization bill, which passed the House on Thursday and awaits consideration in the Senate.

President Obama came calling in Virginia today, hosting a forum on health care at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale. Gov. Tim Kaine was on stage for a portion of the event, and tons of Virginia Democratic luminaries were in the crowd, from Sen. Mark Warner to U.S. Reps Gerry Connolly, Bobby Scott and Jim Moran.

But Democratic gubernatorial candidate state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds was not around. Was he invited?

Deeds says yes. In an interview this afternoon, Deeds said he would have liked to be at the health care forum but had already agreed to address secondary school principals in Williamsburg this morning and then had other appointments in the Hampton Roads area.

With all this talk about Gov. Tim Kaine's refusal to release his political schedule, we wondered what the men wanting to replace him think about the ongoing debate.

Both Democrat Creigh Deeds and Republican Bob McDonnell told us that they would disclose complete schedules, including political activities, if elected.

Deeds was careful not to criticize the man whose coattails he is trying to ride into the governor's mansion, but made it clear he would handle the situation differently.

We tried to get Deeds directly on this topic, but he would not make himself available. His spokesman Jared Leopold said: "Creigh Deeds is committed to transparency in government."

Republican Bob McDonnell sent a letter to Democrat Creigh Deeds this morning asking for 10 gubernatorial debates across the state.

The two have already agreed to a July 25 debate at the Homestead resort in Deeds' home county of Bath.

McDonnell sent Deeds a schedule of debates that would start July 25 and conclude with a final debate at the University of Virginia on Oct. 20, two weeks before Election Day. Each would be available on TV, radio or Internet.

"Virginians are tired of sound bite campaigns,'' McDonnell said in a statement. "They want to know where the candidates stand on the issues of today. And they want to hear this directly from the candidates."

We are awaiting a response from the Deeds campaign and will let you know when we get it.

UPDATE: Deeds said this afternoon that he is eager to debate McDonnell but he had not yet read McDonnell's press release and his campaign is evaluating the issue.

"I'm not going to let Bob McDonnell dictate my campaign schedule," he said. Deeds noted he participated in eight forums and debates during the run-up to the recent Democratic primary, outings he said helped boost his campaign from third to first place.

"I'm not afraid of debating Bob," Deeds said, but, he added, "The modern logistics of scheduling these things are tough, because you're trying to get two campaigns together."

"I think we'll probably end up with a debate schedule much like past years," he said.

The Democratic Party of Virginia has agreed to pay a $5,000 fine to the Federal Election Commission, related to deficiencies in the party's financial disclosure forms dating to 2006.

The FEC reports that they found problems with DPV's financial disclosure forms through routine reviews of their filings. The FEC said it sent DPV 31 different requests for additional information related to its 2006 filings, of which the party failed to respond, responded inadequately or responded late to 16. Problems included mathematical discrepancies and some excessive or impermissible contributions.

Attention on aisle 3: Yes, Safeway shoppers, that is U.S. Rep. James P. Moran.

Moran is bagging groceries today at the Safeway at the Bradlee Shopping Center in Alexandria from noon to 1. Why? Well, because who doesn't enjoy having a powerful person bag their groceries? Also, to help out Safeway's annual campaign to fight prostate cancer.

The company raises money each year to aide prostate cancer research--it's raised almost $42 million over the last nine years. Appearances like Moran's raise awareness and encourage giving.