Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown casts his ballot in the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday. (ZUMA Press)

BOSTON — The volunteers, journalists, and donors who entered the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel on Tuesday were greeted by enthusiasm that didn’t usually belong to Republican campaigns in Massachusetts. The room was packed–no one else allowed in–only an hour after the polls closed. And among the throngs were Jenny Beth Martin and Mark Meckler, leaders of Tea Party Patriots, who’d flown in from Georgia and California to watch the final stretch of Scott Brown’s Republican U.S. Senate bid. Meckler held up a Flip Video camera, panning it across the room to film Brown supporters as they chatted and lined up for food and drinks.

[GOP1] “What you’re seeing here in Massachusetts is a reflection of what’s happening all across the country,” said Meckler. Democrats, after all, had tried to turn the momentum against Brown by attacking his endorsements from Tea Party groups and painting him as a tool of out-of-state right-wingers. In a fundraising appeal, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) had even called Brown a “far-right teabagger Republican.” Laura Clawson of Daily Kos derisively called him “the first teabagger senator.”

“Clearly, they’re paying attention to us,” said Martin. “They’re not ignoring us.”

Riding a wave of voter anger, and taking full advantage of an opponent who never fully engaged with the electorate in this Democratic state, Brown won the special election to fill the remaining term of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). The result, unthinkable just two weeks earlier, gave Republicans what Brown had campaigned on in the final stretch–the “41st vote” to sustain filibusters of Democratic bills. National Democrats greeted the news with a mixture of infighting–Martha Coakley, the state attorney general who lost to Brown, was blamed for running an “act of political malpractice”–and panic. In Washington, top Democrats worked phones to prevent members of Congress from being spooked out of re-election, while Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told reporters that the party had squandered its right to push through the health care legislation that occupied his party for most of 2009.

Republicans and conservatives, overjoyed at what many called the “perfect storm” that elected Brown, just danced, sang, and gloated. It was undeniable that Coakley had botched up her campaign. From winning the Democratic primary in December to holding a crucial rally with President Obama on Sunday, she had held only 19 public events. Brown had held 66. She made a series of baffling snafus and gaffes, from leaving the campaign trail right before the election for a Washington, D.C. fundraiser to telling the Boston Globe that she’d rather meet local machine leaders than “stand in the cold” and “shake hands” outside of Fenway Park. Even the campaign’s final press release, a pre-emptive warning of possible election tampering, was mistakenly backdated to January 18. When televisions at the Park Plaza Hotel cut over to her concession speech, Brown supporters alternated between loud boos and delighted victory songs.

“Thank you, Martha!” yelled a 30-year-old Brown volunteer from South Boston named Shaun Green. “Thank you for running the worst campaign ever!”

Todd Feinburg, a conservative radio host who’d tracked Brown’s rise, offered basically the same assessment. “It was the worst campaign anyone’s ever run in the history of mankind, probably.”

A few steps away from the stage where Brown would make his victory speech, a team of conservative activists–some from the state, some not–focused on how they’d brought together their movement to outsmart and outspend one of the country’s most effective Democratic machines. Two months ago, several of them had worked for the insurgent campaign of Doug Hoffman, a first-time candidate who ran on the Conservative Party ticket for a House seat in New York’s 23rd district, forced the Republican Party’s moderate candidate out of the race, and narrowly lost what had been safe GOP territory. Those activists looked at Brown as Hoffman 2.0, a candidate and a campaign that learned the right lessons from that experience and leveraged them into a winning effort.

“They were better funded than Hoffman,” said Eric Odom, the executive director of the American Liberty Alliance. “More importantly, NY-23 lacked any sort of a coherent get-out-the-vote effort. That dominated here. Phone banks, visibilities, giving everybody something to do.” Tea Party activists, said Odom, had flooded into the state. A few feet behind him stood Hannah Giles, the young conservative activist who’d posed as a prostitute for video stings of ACORN, and who had come to the state for (mostly unsuccessful) crowdsourced investigations of possible “voter fraud.”

Brown’s short campaign–he announced for the seat on September 12, 2009, the very day that many Tea Party activists participated in a “taxpayer march on Washington”–masterfully wove together traditional campaign strategy and outreach to old and new conservative media. The arc of his victory demonstrated just how the modern conservative movement can boost a campaign without generating a backlash from voters. His online campaign strategist, Rob Willington, explained to TWI that Brown focused early on outreach to conservative media and built on that with technology that let local and out-of-state activists grab a piece of the campaign.

“I concentrated on specific conservative opinion leaders here in Massachusetts for the first part of the campaign,” said Willington. “Right around Christmas, I started targeting some national political leaders, using certain hashtags, and using video.”

In late December, not far under the radar, the Brown campaign was sold to influential and far-flung activists as a winnable race–a chance to stop complaining and actually break the back of the Obama administration. In a December 30 blog post titled “Fight Everywhere: Scott Brown for Massachusetts,” GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini–who launched RebuildtheParty.com with Willington after the 2008 elections, and who provided some software support for Brown, made what was, at the time, a dreamy-sounding argument that Brown could win. “Any chance we have to take out the Obamacare abomination,” he wrote, “however remote, is a fight worth fighting.”

Organizers for both the Brown and Coakley campaigns now know that the race was fairly close by the time that this outreach occurred. In mid-December the National Republican Senatorial conducted, and kept secret, a poll that showed Brown down by only 13 points. As the candidate out-hustled Coakley, he was made available to conservative opinion-leaders. “He did a wonderful job of going from conservative talk show to conservative talk show, getting his name out there,” said former state treasurer Joe Malone, a Republican, in an interview with local TV station WECN.

There was universal agreement among Brown supporters that the game-changing moment came from a source that Democrats mistrust almost as much as talk radio–pollster Scott Rasmussen. His January 5 poll showing Brown within 9 points of Coakley was immediately derided by Democrats. It didn’t matter.

“In terms of everyone becoming aware of it,” said Todd Feinburg, “that was the moment it broke through.”

From that point, Brown became a cause for the Tea Party movement and the people who’d backed Doug Hoffman. Where Coakley had been able to avoid national scrutiny, conservative blogs and media turned her stumbles into major stories. After the candidates debated on January 11, conservative medias promoted two storylines–that Coakley had erred in declaring that there were “no terrorists” in Afghanistan, and that Brown had a “Reagan moment” when he referred to the open Senate job as “the People’s seat.” It was a line he’d used in interviews before, to little attention. On video, it got a prominent link from the Drudge Report.

The heat poured on after that. On January 13 Coakley flew to Washington to raise money at a long-scheduled event with the Massachusetts delegation. Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack, who had shaken up the momentum of the NY-23 special election after Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava’s husband called the cops on him, chased Coakley to ask an Afghanistan question and was pushed aside by an aide. McCormack tumbled; the photo of him sprawling on the ground as Coakley, hands in pockets, looked on, made it into the Boston Herald.

Every negative Coakley storyline was amplified and made infamous by the same means. On January 14, the Wall Street Journal–owned, like The Weekly Standard and Fox News, by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp–ran an op-ed on Coakley’s record as attorney general, putting the spotlight on a gruesome case of sexual abuse involving a curling iron. The story, aired out earlier by the Boston Globe but not yet known to activists, became infamous, as did Coakley’s verbal stumbles. At Brown rallies attended by TWI, there was universal awareness of Coakley’s gaffes and the curling iron case.

Liberals, by contrast, were too late to engage with the race. A reporter/blogger for ThinkProgress who asked Brown uncomfortable questions only arrived on the trail 24 hours before the election, too late for videos of Brown trying to explain, for example, a vote against financial assistance for Red Cross workers assisting in post-9/11 efforts, to have any impact. A video of the viral “curling iron” story backfiring on Brown as a supporter yelled a crude remark about Coakley also appeared too close to the election, after the momentum was sealed.

Brown’s online outreach also brought him a fundraising surge, starting with a January 11 “moneybomb” that raised $1.3 million, that put him far ahead of where either campaign expected him to be. He ended the race with $4 million in campaign funds, the result of $1 million in daily fund-raising. In the days to come, partisans will get a better sense of how much support got from more traditional sources–waves of ads from the Chamber of Commerce, late support from the NRSC and RNC, and early fund-raising aid from Mitt Romney, who introduced Brown at the victory party after remaining mostly absent from the campaign. And any effort to replicate the “perfect storm” in other states will need more candidates like Brown, who on Tuesday night had become a superstar, an object of outright veneration from supporters who couldn’t believe what he pulled off.

“He’s almost like a messiah,” said Deborah Strange, a former Ted Kennedy supporter–although she’d voted for George W. Bush and John McCain–who sat resting her bad knees as Brown gave his victory speech. “He’s given us hope. He’s given us hope.”

My hotel, next door to the convention center, was adorned with a large “McCain-Palin” sign. I walked around the corner to have dinner at a nice little bistro called Croc’s (where they make a dynamite seafood risotto) and found numerous signs on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, endorsing various Democrats — including former Gov. Mark Warner for Senate and Sen. Barack Obama for president.

According to RealClearPolitics, Obama leads by an average of 6.3 percentage points in recent polls in Virginia, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since 1964.

However, the data appears to be trending even more in Obama’s favor — four of the six most recent surveys listed found Obama leads by eight points or more.

So, with just 22 days until the general election, McCain and Palin find themselves campaigning hard in a state many used to consider a sure thing for Republicans.

After the rally here, Palin will move on to Richmond for another rally this afternoon. In a further sign of the zeitgeist, McCain will move on to North Carolina — a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

With such little time remaining, one has to wonder if the McCain campaign is now playing catch-up. The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama, his wife, Michelle, and Sen. Joe Biden have made nearly twice as many appearances in swing states as the McCains and Palin.

In the five weeks since the fall campaign officially began, Sen. Obama, his wife, Michelle, and vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden have appeared at a total of 95 separate events in states that both sides are contesting.

Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, have appeared at 55 events in those areas, with Cindy McCain, the nominee’s wife, adding only one more to the total, according to a Wall Street Journal tally based on schedules provided by the campaigns.

The gap makes a difference in the amount of press that each ticket gets in critical markets — and is mirrored by a similar disparity in TV advertising. Sen. Obama outspent Sen. McCain and the Republican National Committee on ads in 15 states for the week ended Oct. 4, according to the Wisconsin Advertising Project, an initiative at the University of Wisconsin. The Republicans spent more in just two states.

The effect: The Democrats are being seen much more often, in free news coverage and in paid advertising, in the states that will determine the winner.

With Bill Kristol calling for McCain to “fire his campaign” and basically start over from scratch in his column in The New York Times today, McCain reportedly will try a different tack: acknowledge the tough position, but remind voters that McCain relishes the role of the underdog.

From Politico’s Mike Allen:

“The national media has written us off,” McCain says in excerpts released by the campaign. “Senator Obama is measuring the drapes, and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections, and concede defeat in Iraq. But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”

Is this the last-ditch strategy? The New York Times reports that, despite an assurance over the weekend from Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) that a comprehensive new tax plan would be forthcoming, there are no new economic proposals on the docket. In addition, McCain advisers “did not know why Graham said that.”

This kind of amateurish confusion this late in the game must not be comforting to  already-disgruntled McCain supporters.

Without the infusion of new ideas, McCain has just one debate remaining to shift the momentum. If his candidacy rests on a change in style rather than substance to turn this thing around, it may  be too little too late.

Mark Warner and Barack Obama on the campaign trail in Virginia. (flickr)

Friday afternoon, former Virginia state Sen. Russ Potts, who once ran for governor as an independent, opened his Winchester home for a landmark event. Ten prominent Republicans gathered to endorse the Senate campaign of former Gov. Mark Warner before a fund-raiser attended by 200 people — Republicans, Democrats, independents.

More than a fund-raiser, or even a grand photo-op, the event signaled just how powerful a grip Warner has in his Senate race to replace retiring Republican stalwart Sen. John Warner. Some polls have the widely popular Warner leading by as much as 30 points over his GOP rival, Jim Gilmore. The state long considered a Republican fortress seems poised to have two Democratic senators, in addition to a Democratic governor.

One would think that such circumstances would shine brightly for Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, who’s campaigned vigorously throughout the state. But the challenge for Obama is tough. Virginia hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The presence of military bases in the state have created a solid conservative voting bloc that most always votes for national Republican candidates.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

But if you haven’t noticed, we’re in once-unimagined political territory this campaign season. The more one travels the country, the more one realizes that the old party affiliations have begun to crumble. More and more people are declaring themselves independents — voting from their guts and their pocketbooks. This all makes Virginia a state very much in play.

With a little less than a month from the election, Obama leads Sen. John McCain by four points in the most recent CNN/Time/Opinion Research Poll. This is the Virginia that McCain, in late May, enjoyed a 9 percentage point lead in a poll taken by Virginia Commonwealth University, according to a recent CNN.com story.

“What you’re seeing now is the opposite of what usually happens,” said Cordel Faulk, director of communications at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Warner, the Senate candidate, is actually helping Obama.”

But the question remains, how much?

Looking at comparable races across the country, nowhere is there the kind of disparity of poll numbers for a Democrat in a open statewide race versus the top of the national ticket. In Colorado, Democrat Mark Udall leads by four percentage points over his opponent, a number that closely mirrors Obama’s state numbers. In New Mexico, Tom Udall has opened up a 14-point lead over his opponent, while Obama averages a seven-point advantage over McCain.

Neither case shows anywhere near the gap between the lead Warner enjoys and the dogfight Obama’s in. So, like, what gives?

To answer, one need not look any further than Potts, a disaffected Republican known for saying what he wants when and where he wants to. In a long conversation Wednesday, Potts pretty much railed against all things Republican — the Bush administration, the war in Iraq, the damages to this country’s infrastructure and economy.

“The grass-roots efforts of the Republican Party in Virginia have been pathetic,” Potts said. “The far right has frightened off so many people. You have a Republican meeting here, and 12 people show up — and it’s the same 12 people wanting to talk about social issues when Rome is burning.

“We’ve got the worst economy in god knows when, and they want to talk about Bill Ayers or abortion. Meanwhile we have a president, a Republican president, who’s presided over the largest deficit in the history of mankind, and they don’t seem to care. The Republican Party in Virginia is like an alcoholic — you have to hit the absolute bottom if you want to turn it around.”

After he spent several minutes praising Warner and trashing Gilmore and McCain, Potts got around to Obama.

“I have not decided who I’m going to support,” said Potts, whom you might have expected to break out into a chant of “Yes, we can!”

“I’m extremely disappointed with McCain. He’s run a lousy campaign. Their message has been off, and to top it all off — he chose someone completely unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. But I’ll still weigh everything.”

Potts’ ambivalence demonstrates just how far support of Warner can help Obama. After remaining neutral through the primaries, Warner formally endorsed Obama in early June at an event in Bristol, in conservative southwest Virginia. He next teamed with him in August, in Martinsville, where Warner remains popular because of his efforts to bolster the region’s economic base.

The truth of the matter is Virginia is a difficult state to, well, “get.”

In interviews with influential Republicans, Democrats and longtime observers of the state’s political trends, it becomes apparent that Virginia doesn’t behave the way people seeking a simple solution would like.

Race cannot be considered the overwhelming factor, just as the Warner’s popularity does not seem to transfer to the top of the national ticket. The state is trending Democratic — but toward Democrats that fit neither the northern liberal ideal or that of the Old South. Population changes have made Northern Virginia fertile for Democratic victory, but the defense industry’s interests still loom large, and has many tilt toward McCain.

Thus, of all the supposed battle states, Virginia remains perhaps the one most difficult to read strategically for both national campaigns. Yes, George W. Bush’s popularity ranks low here, while Warner’s is ungodly high. But just as McCain isn’t Bush, neither is Obama the same man as Warner.

“Virginians know Mark Warner better,” Faulk said of the gap, “and they’re not fond of Jim Gilmore. The thing with McCain is he’s a Virginia-moderate- type guy who simply plays well here. And McCain can win for that reason. But it’s just a matter of fact that Virginians know Warner so much better than Obama.”

However the question looming large — like a blimp over a sporting event — is could the Warner campaign do more for Obama?

Craig Brians, a Virginia Tech political science professor, observed, “I’m not seeing the kind of linkages being made between Gov. Warner’s campaign with Obama’s campaign. Maybe it is occurring or is about to occur — but right now I’m not seeing it.”

“In the southwestern part of the state,” said the University of Virginia’s Faulk, “a lot of people have joined this kind of McCain-Warner alliance. It is not something Warner is trying to clamp down. He’s not telling them to ‘Stop, please vote Obama-Warner.’”

Needless to say, the Warner campaign and the Virginia Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign have differing views on this. They point out that the literature being hand-delivered to Virginia homes by volunteers show both Warner and Obama together. A Warner campaign spokesperson added that Warner has done his best to do joint appearances with Obama — appearing with him four times and accepting his request to be keynote speaker for the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

L. Douglas Wilder

“We’re campaigning aggressively for both the governor and Obama,” said Emily Kryder, a press secretary for the Warner campaign. “Drive around areas like Roanoke and you’re seeing Obama-Warner signs. All the pieces of literature from the coordinated campaign have Obama-Warner on them. We’re taking nothing for granted. It’s not like we’re eating bonbons till Election Day. That’s part of making sure we’re successful up and down the ticket on Nov. 4.”

Jared Leopold, communications director for the state Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign echoed Kryder’s sentiments. He also pointed out how much better Obama is faring in the state compared to John Kerry, and even Al Gore — both of whom lost by 8.03 and 8.20 percentage points, respectively.

“Every week we knock on 100,000 doors in Virginia,” Leopold said. “There are thousands of pieces of literature with Obama’s face next to Warner’s face. Mark Warner’s a very popular figure in this state, and his presence helps when we go to doors where people are sure about Warner and not so sure about the national presidential race. But for Obama, there’s no stronger vailidator than Mark Warner.”

Of course, the one issue rampaging in this campaign, with everyone running from it in mortal fear, is race.

The dynamics of racial politics resonate in Virginia, the state that elected the nation’s first black governor, L. Douglas Wilder. In his historic 1989 bid, Wilder held a double-digit lead in polls but won by only one-tenth of a percentage point. Many political analysts since have cited this election in saying that while white registered voters might tell pollsters one thing, they will not admit that they cannot vote for an African-American.

The truth is we won’t know if “the Wilder effect” will be applicable to Obama until after Election Day. What we do know is that despite all the literature and joint appearances — and even a remake of “I SPY” where Warner and Obama reprise the roles of Robert Culp and Bill Cosby — linking the success of the two campaigns will prove difficult.

What Virginia represents is a more nuanced political future. Yes, Warner — like Gov. Tim Kane and Sen. Jim Webb — belongs to the Democratic Party. But he, like Webb and Kaine, enjoys success as an individual that Virginians trust. Whether they’re Democrats seems beside the point.

“It’s just hard for me to see the effect a Senate race would have on a presidential race,” said Frank Atkinson, a venerable figure in Virginia politics who served in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Dept. and also as policy director for George Allen during his time as governor. “It’s possible there would be some, but the two campaigns are framed differently.

“Obviously you have a very close race — which is not really surprising,” Atkinson continued. “My thesis is that I’m tired of Virginia being described as a red state. It’s still considered a red state because of the way it’s voted in presidential races — but you should really consider the state purple.

“This is a state of winning streaks,” Atkinson said, ” In the ’80s it was dominated by Democrats. In the ’90s, it was the Republicans. Now in the 2000s we’ve seen a Democratic decade. I don’t think Virginia is a strong candidate to tip blue in a strong election — namely because of the strong Republican voter concerns about homeland security issues.”

But Atkinson, like many others, agrees that should external circumstances remain as they are, Obama might have the best chance since President Bill Clinton in 1996 to bring the state to the Democratic side of the ledger.

It might be true that Warner’s popularity can position Obama to win. But Warner cannot carry the day for the Democratic nominee, cannot let him glide in on what will most likely be a monstrous Senate victory.

Instead, Obama — so fond of basketball — has been delivered a decent look at the basket by Warner. Whether he can actually make the shot will be up to him.

But wait, weren’t all the experts and pundits worrying about Obama’s demise just one month ago? Well times change.

Markets fall. Running mates get exposed as embarassingly unqualified. So now this week’s conventional wisdom — first teed up on the front page of the Sunday New York Times and now spreading across the chattering class — is that Obama will not only win, but win big.

The Times analysis focused on the economy, reporting that pocketbook issues were powering Obama “in at least nine states that voted for President Bush in 2004, including some that neither side thought would be on the table this close to Election Day.”

The piece included caveats, but flip to the back of the paper and you’ll find bolder predictions. On Monday, conservative columnist David Brooks flatly “called the election for Obama.” (He was speaking at the American Magazine Conference, as Advertising Age reported.) Even Clintonites are getting in on the act.

“It’s over,” says Howard Wolfson, the Clinton press strategist turned Fox News commentator (and sometime blogger). “If the election were tomorrow, Obama would win all of the states John Kerry carried and add Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Ohio and Florida,” he blogged this week. “This dynamic is very unlikely to change. John McCain’s goal in the first debate was to discredit Sen. Obama as a credible commander in chief… He didn’t come close. Absent a domestic terror attack the economy will remain the No. 1 issue in the race, and there is little Sen. McCain can do to make up [the] gap.”

I found the August hand-wringing about Obama’s problems overblown. While these have obviously been two great weeks for the Democratic nominee, this new narrative is also over the top.

Perceptions change quickly in politics. A “terror attack” is not the only event that could upend this race. Let’s dial it down — how about a gaffe in the remaining debates? Or new revelations about any of the candidates?

In this volatile market, you’d think people would be more careful about hedging their bets.

The Democratic presidential nominee also reprised several lines from his nomination acceptance speech, ridiculing the Republicans’ “ownership society” as code for “you’re on your own,” and contending that McCain simply “doesn’t get it.”

Obama’s aides are working hard to burnish his Virginia credentials. Today’s rally included introductions by several local figures. The most famous, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, announced his endorsement in remarks before the rally.

Prudence Dillon, 34, a teacher and mother of four, spoke about why Obama inspired her to volunteer in politics for the first time. Two other speakers touted Obama’s commitment to coal and local party-building, noting that he made more visits to Virginia than any other Democratic nominee.

One speaker went on a tear defending community organizers against Republican attacks, noting that Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus were organizers.

Virgina legend Dr. Ralph Stanley endorsed Obama on Tuesday. (Photo credit: Matt Knoth)

“We are the Saudi Arabia of coal,” riffed Obama, as he promised to find a way to “burn coal” with “clean energy technologies.” He also repeated his pledge to take the $10 billion that America is spending in Iraq and invest it at home, drawing a standing ovation.

Obama’s Virginia effort strives for intimacy rather than stadium rallies. He not only took questions at the gym event — about stem-cell research, rural poverty and health care — but also stopped by a shake shop in Abingdon to mingle with a mere handful of customers.

There Obama happened on another legend, the 76-year-old “Big Daddy Garlits,” whom the senator recognized.

From the pool report:

‘This is the father of drag racing, right here!’ Mr. Obama said, introducing Mr. Garlits to the cameras. [Garlits] is known as the pioneer of drag racing for a career that spanned from 1950 to 2003. (He said he retired five years ago, ending with a 310 m.p.h. race.) He lives in Ocala, Fla., but he and his wife were visiting their daughter and came to Ellis Soda Shoppe for some ice cream…. [Garlits later noted that] he was mighty impressed with Mr. Obama and had watched his announcement speech in Springfield and his convention speech in Denver. A lifelong Republican, he said he was frustrated with Washington and undecided between Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain.

Obama was also asked about GOP attempts to ignite a “culture war” over Gov. Sarah Palin’s family. Obama reiterated that candidate’s familes are “off limits,” noting they were “civilians who didn’t choose to run for office.”

Even as the senator spoke, however, the McCain campaign was launching another salvo in cultural combat, disingenously claiming Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners.

Tuesday evening, Obama spokesperson Bill Burton called the attack “shameful and perverse,” explaining that the relevant legislation was actually designed to “protect young children from sexual predators.” “John McCain told Time magazine he couldn’t define what honor was,” Burton added. “Now we know why.”

Finally, Obama’s last question at the gym rally came from a 6th-grader named Payton, who wanted to know how the senator might bring down gas prices. Comitting to tell voters what they “need to hear,” Obama said gas prices weren’t returning to $2 a gallon, and the “only way we can really bring gas prices down long term” is to “start using energy differently,” as his energy plan proposes. (TWI background here.)

Obama’s September push shows he is serious about winning Virginia — which hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since 1964. The formula is relentless offense on economic populism — and swift defense against the cultural attacks that have bloodied so many Democrats here.

On Tuesday, the formula looked good enough to have Virginia Democrats pondering victory for the first time in generations.