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.

That’s right. Thanks to a well-connected friend, I’m at Section 123 of Invesco, which, if there was turf laid down instead of a massive stage, would be the 50 yard line. Ironically — and not to complain! — but the seats are less-than-ideal, since I’m behind that massive stage. But watching Obama on the JumboTrons won’t exactly be an inconvenience. I’m not in a press area, so I’ll get to witness The Speech the way 76,125 of Barack Obama’s closest friends will: in an atmosphere of sheer patriotic pandemonium. (Unfortunately that also means I’ll be running on laptop-battery power, so posting will be a bit infrequent as I conserve energy.)

Getting in here was frustrating: a two-hour-long line stretching back to the Pepsi Center parking lot. I’m guessing a sturdy artifact of the pre-nomination march into Invesco could be my Twitter feed, wherein my friends and me pissed and moaned about waiting forever in the sweltering heat to advance a few paces at a time, accosted by all manner of t-shirt and tchotchke vendors hustling Obama memorabilia. We’re about four hours or so away from The Speech, and Invesco is baking hot. A slight breeze feels as refreshing as an open icebox.

None of this, of course, can take away from the majesty of this moment, if I can be personal for a moment. Politically, Obama is already getting a bounce, measured even before Biden’s speech last night. But whatever the immediate political impact of the speech is, the spectacle is breathtaking. McCain may be hitting Obama for being a “celebrity” — a racially-charged derision intended to make him seem insubstantial, as if an African-American candidate could earn his party’s nomination without working so much harder than any white politician — but that’s both right and wrong at the same time. Obama truly has become a symbol of restoration in America. To deride that is to deride the millions of people who believe. I am among tens of thousands of them right now.

“The best way you can thank me for my service and sacrifice,” says a Marine on stage who lost his arm in Haditha in 2005, “…is to vote Barack Obama.” He’s one of these tens of thousands. Here’s another speaking to the crowd. “I registered as a Republican and voted for John McCain in 2000,” says Nathaniel Fick, a retired Marine captain, whose story you can find in HBO’s “Generation Kill.” “We cannot afford more of the same. That’s why we need Barack Obama and Joe Biden.” And here’s a third. “We’ve been a band for about 10 years and this is probably the coolest thing we’ve ever done,” says the singer of a bluegrass act called the Mountain String band. “We only get this once in our life, and God bless Barack Obama.”