Virginia going blue!
He could've picked Ohio. Or Florida. Or any one of the dozen or so traditional swing states that have decided American presidential elections since the dawn of time (or at least 1992). But for his first official stop on the trail to November, newly minted Democratic nominee Barack Obama visited a place last week that hasn't voted for a dreaded Democrat since the slightly more Southern Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas triumphed there in 1964. The special state? Virginia.
Sure, Virginia is for lovers. But is it for Obama? If past is prelude, the answer is no. In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore there by 7 points, and four years later, the president expanded his margin, trouncing John Kerry by 8; before LBJ, no Democrat had won the commonwealth since Harry Truman in 1948. But the Obama campaign is confident that it can turn the tide, citing the Old Dominion as part of a new generation of swing states. "We want to campaign here and we want to win here," Gov. Tim Kaine, Obama's top Virginia backer, told the Associated Press. Even John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, admits the longtime Republican stronghold is now in play. "I think it is a battleground state," he told The Washington Post. "I know they are targeting it, and we are certainly targeting it."
Neither Gore nor Kerry fought hard for Virginia—much like Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, McGovern and Humphrey before them. So why the unprecedented push now?
The electorate is diversifying—and it's heading in a Democratic direction. Between 2000 and 2006, northern Virginia's Washington, D.C., suburbs grew 15 percent; they now account for a third of the state's population. Meanwhile, the ring of exurbs farther from the capital has exploded. Thanks to an influx of middle-class, well-educated voters, Loudoun County, for example, is now the fastest-growing swath of the country: since 2000, it's gained more than 100,000 people, a 60 percent increase. ...
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