For the first time since 1964, Virginia is in play in a presidential election. Many residents are surprised to see Virginia shaded blue on some electoral maps. The state will indeed make history if it favors Sen. Barack Obama. But in my mind, Virginia is already making history.

Polls show Obama leading, on average, by about 4.4 percent. This is monumental because the first African-American presidential candidate might take the state and because, more important, he’s so close to actually pulling it off.

Slavery, segregation and racial hatred clouds Virginia’s past. In some parts of the state, racial hatred is still alive — a reality we’ve been forced to face this election season. But another reality has also surfaced: Virginians have looked beyond skin color to learn about the candidates and what they stand for. In doing so, they’ve become so energized about the issues that they are turning out in record numbers to vote.

White that’s exciting, it’s also worrisome. High turnout and wet weather have caused problems at polling places throughout the state.

Twenty-five percent of Virginia’s polling places use optical scanning machines. There are reports that some are acting up because paper ballots were wet and the machines couldn’t read them. There have been voting-machine malfunctions in Louisa, Petersburg and Chesterfield counties, as well as elsewhere. In Richmond and Virginia Beach, precincts opened late. Long lines in Richmond and its suburbs have reportedly created some voting problems.

Hopefully, most of these problems will get sorted out, and all registered Virginians who haven’t already voted will make it to the polls by 7 p.m. Any voters encountering problems can report them to the CNN Voter Hotline at 1-877-462-6608.

No matter the outcome, this election is groundbreaking for Virginia. My state may still have a long way to go — but it’s on the right track.

Old Bag of Nails, Columbus, OH (Flickr: Ubi Desperare Nescio)

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dusk was falling in Upper Arlington, an affluent Columbus suburb, as members of the Wicked Investment Club gathered in the back dining room of Old Bag of Nails, a bar tucked into a stone strip mall. It looked like the kind of place that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin talks about when she speaks of the real America. Posters of the local high school sports teams decorate the entrance — football players with their arms fiercely crossed, field hockey leaders posing without their shoes — and the air is thick with the smell of beer and fried fish. On TV screens, ESPN and CNBC compete for patrons’ attention.

For 19 years, the Wicked Investment Club, whose members are, for the most part, retired, have met each month through bear and bull markets. They have seen the dot-com bubble come and go. More recently, the women’s group watched their portfolio — to which they each give $35 a month — drop with the failing fortunes of the rest of the nation.

Members were having dinner at the bar before their official meeting at the library across the street They were talking about what everyone talks about these days — presidential politics.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

“I’ve been over-surveyed to death,” Wicked president Cay Friedman said. “But this most recent one was just awful. I pick up the phone, and this woman, chomping on gum, asks, ‘So, Cathy, are you going to vote for Obama?’ She didn’t identify herself, and she’s calling me Cathy, not Cay or Catherine. I said, ‘Well, that’s pretty personal, why do I have to go behind the sheet and vote?’”

“Do you answer truthfully?” asked fellow Wicked member Carolyn Focht. “I just lie to send them astray.”

Later in the dinner, Molly Schmied, by far the youngest club member, asked no one in particular, “If a recession is two quarters of economic decline, then what’s a depression?”

“It’s when it’s time to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge,” Focht replied.

Similar conversations are probably taking place in similar bars, as well as at wine tastings and regular group dinners at restaurants, all over Ohio — which is the point. If ever there was a state that had earned the name battleground, it’s Ohio.

It is a state with three major markets and many mid-size ones; with a Rustbelt economy in the northeast collapsing and a nervous white-collar workforce in the southwest. It is a state where the concerns of Appalachia weigh heavy in the southeast regions and here in increasingly cold Columbus, which is a microcosm of America. Candidates find it difficult to compete in the state, for distrust of the other side reigns supreme.

The last two presidential elections were decided by close margins, and conflict is always just below the surface. When it came time to reward land to those who fought in the Revolutionary War, it was New Englanders who were given their share in north Ohio, while the south went to Virginians. During the Civil War, the north stood as a Union stronghold, while the southwest, where I spent my youth, had more than its share of Confederate sympathizers.

Here is where “Iowa meets New Jersey,” as Democratic strategist Greg Haas told me.

“Ohio is a great representation of the entire nation,” said Deidra Reese, executive director of the League of Women Voters here. “We’ve got urban areas and rural areas, very poor ones close to very affluent ones. We literally run from one end of the spectrum when it comes to the diversity of lifestyles and interests. You can’t judge and say, ‘Ohio’s going to do this. You just can’t.”

And yet both candidates must make Ohio work for them. We are less than two weeks away from perhaps the most important general election in decades, and the state remains one that either Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. John McCain could take on his road to the White House.

Four years ago, when Iraq was the No. 1 issue in the rest of the country had, polls said Ohioans put economic fears ahead of national security. While campaigning with Obama this summer, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland remarked something like, “As goes Ohio, so goes the country.” As the rest of the country stares down economic collapse, people here may have found the one issue that can unite them — economic distress.

Obama has opened up a small lead in the state, has motivated millions to register to vote and has made inroads in traditionally Republican district. But people in this state have seen fortunes change before.

“I remember four years ago, in Upper Arlington, seeing [John] Kerry signs on lawns where I’d never seen Democratic signs before,” said homemaker Beth Taggart, as we spoke not far from the statehouse on Tuesday afternoon. “The next morning, when I heard Kerry had conceded Ohio, I was with my sister eating breakfast at Bob Evans. And I looked around and asked, ‘Who are all these people who voted for Bush?’ I felt like a stranger in a strange land, like it wasn’t even my country anymore.”

“The state is still up for grabs,” said Herb Asher, an emeritus professor of political science at Ohio State University. “Both candidates have a reasonably good organization in place. Obviously, they both have to make sure to mobilize their base. But the other thing they have to do is connect to that middle ground. They have to connect with them on what is the major issue of the day — and that is the economy. How do you tap into voter fear? Voter anger?”

These are questions that candidates must deal with in other states, of course. But Ohio, perhaps more than any other state, represents the aspirations and fears of the country; it also is a place where mistrust finds a deeper resonance.

Because of the closeness of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, many — particularly African-Americans — accuse Republicans of conspiring to throw out, or simply ignore, votes that would have give the state to Al Gore and, four years later, to Kerry. This time around, one cannot watch local TV news more than a few minutes without seeing one of two stories: how Ohio State can beat No. 3-ranked Penn State Saturday, and how Republicans are poised to challenge the validity of ballots cast in early voting through Nov. 4.

Early Tuesday afternoon, I sat with Peg Rosenfield, the elections specialist for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, in the basement cafe of the state capitol. Rosenfield tended to shrug them off the most recent charges of voter fraud by state Republicans, instead blaming registration irregularities or stupidity — not dark complicity.

Misspellings, clerical errors, the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, hiring workers who simply didn’t care about the integrity of the voting process — those were the real issues behind supposed registration fraud, according to Rosenfield. She and others in the league spoke about the better preparedness of poll workers — which, as a matter of full disclosure, includes my mother — and other protections.

What most concerned Rosenfield was the potential for voter suppression and intimidation — tactics used in the Jim Crow South to keep African-Americans from exercising their right to vote at the dawn of the civil-rights movement. It was supposed to be a thing of the past, viewed in black-and-white when scrolling through grainy microfiche. Instead, Rosenfield said, it is something real — beginning with lawsuits she believed were filed in part to make first-time voters uncomfortable.

That made her scared of what might possibly happen should the race narrow, as one might expect.

“What really worries me is if it’s really close in Ohio, and if the state is going to make a difference,” Rosenfield said. “If it’s close in Ohio, and neither candidate has enough votes to win in the Electoral College, it’s going to make Florida in 2000 look like a family picnic. They’re just going to descend on us. That worries me. And nobody seems to worry about it. And it’s a very real possibility.

“There’s a prayer that election board members have,” Rosenfield said. “It goes something along the lines of, ‘Dear Lord, I don’t care who wins, but let it be a landslide.’ Because if you lose a close election, the losing party always thinks they have votes taken away from them. They can’t accept that their candidate didn’t get as many votes as the other one.

“The truth is,” Rosenfield said, “there are enough checks and balances to make sure the system goes right. And because we have close elections in Ohio — from school board seats to county commissioner — we really do know how to do recounts.”

That is the last thing anyone in this state wants.

A sense of weariness hangs over Ohio, like a night that will not end. The Obama and the McCain campaigns have poured millions into the state, and the effects of all that money have begun to show up in the minds of even the young. After dinner, before the members of the Wicked Investment Club could get down to business, Molly Schmied told a story about her young son picking up a magazine with Obama’s picture on it and blurting out, “I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message.”

Following the chuckles, the group settled down to business. They looked over their portfolio, spoke about potential buys. Of all the stocks listed, only one had increased over the past month. This was not a terribly nervous bunch — one got the sense they were in it as a kind of sport — but they were concerned enough. The market had failed them, as it had millions of others like them.

Toward the end of the evening, they chose to buy shares in one company. Choosing the man to lead them from this crisis will come soon enough.

In a McCain campaign conference call with the GOP presidential nominee’s traveling press corps, Mike DuHaime, Sen. John McCain’s political director, and campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds sought to paint a rosy picture for McCain in Pennsylvania, but reporters wanted to talk about the report from ABC’s George Stephanopolous. The report asserts that the campaign is stretching out existing ad buys in Wisconsin and New Hampshire — Colorado was added in an update — rather than purchasing new air time.

Asked about the report, DuHaime said:

“I believe that Wisconsin and New Hampshire very much remain in play for us. They are obviously states that Sen. [John] Kerry won…Our plan is to compete heavily in both of those states, and we think we’ve got a great shot.”

Bounds was asked if he was denying ABC’s report, but he ducked the question:

“We reserve the right to move advertising dollars around, and it shouldn’t be overly-analyzed. We will continue to shift resources in and out of states as our strategy plays out.”

When asked if the campaign is, in fact, “stretching” its existing buys, Bounds said:

“I have to be pretty firm on this…We continue to be on the air in all of our target states, including Wisconsin and New Hampshire. We, of course, reserve the right, just like the Obama campaign, to adjust our buys in these markets based on the strategic objectives we need to achieve. Today, John McCain’s message is in Wisconsin and New Hampshire. We expect to move strategically toward touching voters in key target states so we can win on Election Day.”

McCain has not appeared in Wisconsin since Oct. 10. He is slated to appear at a rally in Manchester tomorrow.

If McCain’s schedule in coming days lacks appearances in Colorado and New Hampshire, it will be a further indication that the electoral map has gotten considerably smaller for the Republican — and Pennsylvania will become even more of a must-win state for McCain.

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder adds Maine to the list.

]]> http://washingtonindependent.com/14079/mccain-advisers-dont-deny-scaling-back-in-wisconsin-and-new-hampshire/feed 3 http://washingtonindependent.com/13042/after-debate-the-mood-on-obamas-plane http://washingtonindependent.com/13042/after-debate-the-mood-on-obamas-plane#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:20:16 +0000 Ari Melber http://washingtonindependent.com/?p=13042 NEW YORK, N.Y. — Traveling with a candidate is most interesting after big events, when the mood can shift perceptibly. Obama’s mood is now cautiously optimistic, as I wrote earlier, his traveling aides seem purely cautious — per usual — and the traveling press seems to think this is now Obama’s race to lose.

Count this as mere speculation from the road, not an empirical conclusion.

But the collective wisdom is that Obama got the night he needed. The roving gaffe-watch continues, of course, and one sentence can upend a campaign in this news environment. But as we head to New Hampshire today, most people with access appear to be betting on Obama.

According to RealClearPolitics, Pennsylvania is solid for Sen. Barack Obama, who leads by an average of 13.6 percentage points in recent major polls in the state.

McCain’s last public campaign event before last night’s presidential debate was Tuesday morning, in Blue Bell, Pa. — an exurb of Philadelphia. McCain is scheduled to return to the Philly area today for a rally in Downingtown, Pa., before returning to New York to tape an appearance on “The Late Show with David Letterman” and speak at the Al Smith Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel this evening.

This raises another question. McCain arrived in New York at around 2 p.m. Tuesday, in advance of the debate. He left his hotel at approximately 9:40 this morning. If McCain keeps his schedule, this means he will have spent all of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in New York, where he has no chance of winning, or Pennsylvania, where he has a miniscule chance. With 19 days left until the election, is this really the most efficient use of the GOP presidential nominee’s time?

Furthermore, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spent the day in New Hampshire yesterday, another “solid” Obama state, per RealClearPolitics. Why?

It appears the McCain campaign is clinging to the fantasy that it can hold onto the previously red states and even turn some formerly blue states red. A rational reading of the tea leaves should convince McCain’s political advisers that if they want even a remote possibility of winning on Nov. 4, they need to adopt a strictly defensive posture.

The race is boiling down to a small handful of toss-up states: Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada and one swing electoral vote in Maine. President George W. Bush carried all these states in 2004, and Sen. Barack Obama is leading in the polls– at least marginally — in all except Missouri.

This is where the map at 270towin.com comes in. Basically, it all comes down to Virginia, which, by the way, CNN just moved from “toss-up” to Obama’s column. If you give McCain all of the other toss-ups, including the vote in Maine — already an unlikely scenario — Obama still wins with 276 electoral votes. If McCain takes Virginia as well, he will win with 275.

Obama is leading the RealClearPolitics average in Virginia by 8.6 percentage points. FiveThirtyEight.com, the electoral handicapping Website, gave Obama a 94 percent chance of winning the state as of yesterday. On the McCain campaign press bus the other day, a Washington reporter — recognized by others as a Virginia expert — predicted an easy Obama victory.

If McCain wants to retain the faintest glimmer of hope of becoming president — barring drastic unforeseen, game-changing circumstances — he and Palin should forget Pennsylvania and New Hampshire and focus strictly on the toss-ups — particularly Virginia.