RICHMOND, Va. — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama kicked off his campaign for the general election Thursday by stumping for votes in opposite ends of Virginia, sending a clear signal to voters and Republicans that he plans to compete hard in a state that past Democratic presidential candidates largely ignored.
With Obama hoping to shake up voting patterns across the country, it looks increasingly as if Virginia will be a center of his strategy for amassing the 270 electoral votes he will need to defeat Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee.
“To go to a Southern state right off the bat and lay down a marker is very smart politics for Barack Obama,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist who orchestrated the victory of Sen. James Webb, D-Va., in 2006. “Obama has made a statement to voters in some of these potential swing areas and the South that ‘I am going to bring my message here, and I am not going to be intimidated by past voting patterns.’ ”
Many Republicans, and some Democrats, say Obama faces long odds winning a state like Virginia, which has 13 electoral votes and last supported a Democratic presidential nominee in 1964.
Many of the same national-security and social issues that tripped up past Democratic candidates are likely to hamper Obama, and Virginia voters have a long record of making a candidate’s experience a key factor in their votes.
“The Democratic model in the last four to six years in Virginia has been to run as an honest-to-goodness centrist . . . and I think Obama is going to be a tough sell,” said Delegate Christopher Saxman of Staunton, co-chairman of McCain’s Virginia campaign, who noted Obama has an F rating from the National Rifle Association and supports some tax increases.
Changing demographics
Several Virginia Republicans used Obama’s Virginia appearance Thursday to point out his NRA rating.
But Democrats think Obama is uniquely qualified to put Virginia in play this year. They point out that the state has changed demographically in the past four years, becoming more diverse, more suburban and wealthier — factors that helped send Gov. Timothy Kaine and Webb to statewide victories.
In addition, Virginia has a strong African-American population (about 20 percent) and is home to a well-educated electorate in vote-rich northern Virginia, constituencies that have supported Obama in huge numbers.
So Obama roared into Virginia on Thursday, borrowing from parts of the strategies of Kaine and former Gov. Mark Warner, who is running for the U.S. Senate this year.
Kaine, Webb and Warner all have been mentioned as possible vice presidential nominees for Obama, further increasing the focus on Virginia.
Of the states that President Bush won in 2004, Democrats believe Virginia may be one of Obama’s best pickup opportunities. Since Bush’s first election in 2000, the occupant of the governor’s mansion changed from red to blue — and stayed blue. A popular GOP senator lost his seat to Webb and the state Senate turned Democratic.
They also point out that Virginia was the first state in the nation to elect an African-American governor, Democrat L. Douglas Wilder in 1989.
