He could've picked Ohio. Or Florida. Or any one of the dozen or so old-school swing states that have decided U.S. 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 today visits a place 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, it would seem, is no. In 2000, George W. Bush beat Al Gore there by seven points, and four years later, the president expanded his margin, trouncing John Kerry by eight; before LBJ, no Dem had won the state since Harry Truman in 1948. But the Obama campaign is confident that it can turn the tide, citing the Old Dominion (along with Colorado) as part of a new generation of swing states. "We want to campaign here and we want to win here," says Gov. Tim Kaine, Obama's senior-most Virginia backer. Even John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, admits that the long-time Republican stronghold is now in play. "I think it is a battleground state," he says. "I know they are targeting it, and we are certainly targeting it." Signaling his intentions, Obama arrives this morning in Bristol, then heads to Bristow for an evening rally at the 25,000-seat Nissan Pavilion. Up next: television ads, voter-registration drives and a return visit--or 40.
Neither Gore nor Kerry fought hard for Virginia--much like Clinton, Dukakis, Mondale, Carter, McGovern and Humphrey before them. So why the unprecedented push from Obama?
For starters, the electorate is diversifying--and it's clearly heading in a Democratic direction. Between 2000 and 2006, the D.C. suburbs in northern Virginia grew 15 percent overall; they now account for a third of the state's total population. Meanwhile, the ring of exurbs further from Washington have 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, or 60 percent.
In turn, these transplants have voted for Democrats. In 2000, Gore won Arlington with 60 percent of the vote, but lost Fairfax and Loudoun Counties with 48 and 41 percent, respectively; four years later, Kerry did better, outperforming Gore by eight points in Arlington, winning Fairfax 54-46 and inching up to 44 percent in Loudoun. But the real breakthroughs came in 2005 and 2006, when Democrats Tim Kaine (governor) and Jim Webb (senator) captured all three counties, cracking 50 percent in Loudoun, 60 percent in Fairfax and 70 percent in Arlington. Both pols--along with popular former governor and current Senate candidate Mark Warner--are campaigning with Obama today in Bristol and Bristow, and they plan to continue through November. If Obama (with Webb, Warner and Kaine's help) can match the Democrats' 2005-2006 margins in the northern section of the state and sway a significant segment of the 131,000 new voters who've registered this year alone--nearly half of whom are under 25--aides think he can potentially paint it blue. His surprising 30-point win in the February primary wasn't a bad start.
The other key factor: African-Americans. In Virginia, blacks account for 20 percent of the population--and approximately 200,000 of them aren't registered to vote. With a 50-state registration drive already underway, Team Obama has the vision, organization and resources--an estimated minimum $300 million general-election fund, compared to $85 million for McCain--to make an impact. Consider the math. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry by 262,000 votes; assuming similar turnout, McCain's current one-point lead in the polls would translate into a 33,000-vote edge. To close the gap, then, Obama has to turnout only 16.5 percent of the commonwealth's unregistered African-Americans.
Virginia, of course, won't fall into Obama's lap. Of all the candidates the GOP could've picked, McCain is by far the best match for former Confederate capital; his moderate brand will keep him competitive in Northern Virginia, while his military background gives him an added boost with the state's 800,000 veterans. Moreover, much of the state geography overlaps with Appalachia, whose white, working-class voters have resisted Obama's charms in the primaries. To signal that he's not ceding any support in this largely rural region, Obama picked Bristol--the sole media market in the vast southwest part of the state--for the first stop of his general-election campaign, and brought Warner, who knows how to connect to the NASCAR crowd, along for the ride. It's a powerful message. But it's still unclear if Obama, who's more liberal than Kaine, Warner and Webb, can gain enough ground here to put himself over the top.
According to aides, expanding the map is way of forcing Obama's (relatively underfunded) Republican foe to compete in places once considered safely red. "I think that we are going to have a larger battlefield in 2008," chief strategist David Axelrod told the Huffington Post today. "I
think we are going to stretch the Republicans. I don't think they can
take for granted nearly as many states as they have in the past." But considering Obama's difficulties in Florida and Appalachia (think Ohio), it may also be a matter of necessity. If the Illinois senator retains each of Kerry's 252 electoral votes, then picks off Iowa (where's he's built a massive organization) and New Mexico (where he's the early favorite), Virginia's 13 electors would give him a winning majority of 277--with or without Ohio and Florida.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
