Virgil Goode, R-VA-5, won't endorse McSame. The surest sign of a candidate's lack of popularity is the reluctance of members of his own party to endorse or appear with him. I think it is very likely Virginia will go for Obama.

aha--the campaign manager

If the Obama campaign is trying to get McCain to spend his meager resources in places like Georgia, then I think this is smart.

If they really believe this, then not so smart.

Unless McCain completely collapses, which I admit is a possibility, Obama will not carry Virginia. Virginia has not gone blue in more than forty years in a presidential election. Obama ran very weak in Appalachian Virginia in the primary. Democrats who have won in Virginia in state-wide elections tend to lose this section of the state by less than it looks like Obama is likely to. I don't think he's the kind of candidate that will play much better there in the general than he did in the primary. And not because of his race. Doug Wilder did much better in that part of Virginia than John Kerry did.

You must, I assume, be aware of the flap over the AP and the Drudge Retort where the AP insisted that the Drudge Retort take down 7 items with quotes from the AP.

According to the New York Times :

On Friday, The A.P. issued a statement defending its action, saying it was going to challenge blog postings containing excerpts of A.P. articles “when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste.” An A.P. spokesman declined Friday to further explain the association’s position.

After that, however, the news association convened a meeting of its executives at which it decided to suspend its efforts to challenge blogs until it creates a more thoughtful standard.

But it hasn't set it's guide lines yet, I believe.

Virginia could have carried for the Democratic Pres nominee in 1976, 1992, 1996, 2000, and even 2004. Va Dems lost those years because they decided they couldn't win, so in dozens of jurisdictions they didn't even try. If Obama runs the kind of voter reg campaign he has run in other areas, if he works all the little towns along Route 58 (parallel to the VA/NC border) then he can definitely win and win big.

VA Dems have been leaving millions of votes on the table in past elections. If they register those voters they can win even if the whole of the SW VA goes against them (which it won't)

this has nothing to do with how I feel about Obama, I think Lambert put it brilliantly. This has to do with how I feel about VA politics and the power of grassroots political action. One thing Obama gets is that quality grassroots coordination allows you to swim against the stream.