According to recent polls, Barack Obama and John McCain are roughly tied in Virginia. Virginia, you ask? A dyed in the wool red state for 40 years? Even Bill Clinton's formidable voting coalition never carried Virginia. How did this happen?
In this instance, race is a positive factor for Obama. Roughly 20% of the population are African American, a major factor in Obama's 17-point landslide victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Also, Virginia is increasingly shifting toward being a cosmopolitan, urban-directed state, moving away rom the rural plantation-holdover culture. In Virginia, historic assumption favors McCain, but "History" may favor Obama. Virginia's state government at the moment also represent the post-partisan cooperation both candidates are claiming to offer with the Governor being a Democrat and the Lt. Governor a Republican, and the two Senate seats being split between red and blue. If Obama can mobilize his campaign in Virginia as well as he did in the primaries, there may be an upset in the electoral map.
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