Virginia is one of the key battleground states, and the subject of much attention from both campaigns. Virginia has not voted for a Democrat since LBJ in 1964. But Barack Obama seems to be getting the upper hand, although the margins are still small. Today’s Wahington Post talks about Virginia Democrats calling in Bill Clinton to help shore up Obama in key geographic areas of the state, and how that is quite a switch from the low esteem Clinton was held in here during his presidency. First lets look at Rasmussen:
The latest Fox News/Rasmussen Reports poll in Virginia finds Barack Obama leading John McCain 50% to 48%.
This represents the third consecutive poll where Obama has held a modest lead over his opponent. In last week’s Fox/Rasmussen release, Obama led 50% to 47%. Just four days prior, he held a five percentage point lead.
McCain leads among men, 54% to 44%, while Obama has a 55% to 42% advantage among women. White voters in Virginia favor McCain by a 59% to 38% margin, while non-white voters favor Obama, 82% to 16%.
Virginia is not locked down yet for Obama, and the closeness of this race has state party officials calling in the big guy, Bill Clinton, to help. From the Washington Post:
A decade ago, Virginia Republicans would joke that their easiest path to victory on Election Day was getting the Democrats to have President Bill Clinton campaign for them.
Virginia Democrats rarely obliged, but they still took a series of punishing defeats during the 1990s because many voters in southern and central Virginia had a decidedly negative impression of the former president.
Today, Virginia Democrats hope to turn that joke around on the GOP when Clinton holds rallies in Roanoke and Richmond in support of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Virginia Democrats say Clinton’s campaign swing through Virginia, which is aimed at voters in the largely rural and suburban Richmond and Roanoke television markets, underscores how the state’s political climate and the former president’s image have changed dramatically since he left office in 2001.
So in comes Bill, to help with a demographic that is critical to success in Virginia.
If Obama fails to get at least 40 percent of the votes in Southwest Virginia on Nov. 4, many Democrats believe he will have trouble winning statewide. Democrats are also concerned that Obama is underperforming in small towns in the Shenandoah Valley that historically support their candidates.
“It’s obvious they are trying to get those Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton back, and they have a lot of work to do in the western part of the state,” said Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia.
If Obama wins Virginia it just does not seem possible that McCain would be able to win this thing. But Virginia is still to close to call, and the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to win. This state will also be impacted by the heavy Obama financial edge, with the potential for that financial muscle to put him over the top here. But McCain remains alive, and the Democrats better not start the victory dance yet. There is still time enough for the political dynamic to change, although that window is getting smaller. Read the Post story here.
Bill Manzi.com 