Why Virginia Is Tilting Toward Kerry

[Nicholas_J]

Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Washington Monthly
September 27, 2004
The strangest thing about states is that they actually have characteristics. Start on the bank of
a river, sweep down over thousands of square miles of American turf, farms, suburbs, and
cities, and stop at a line of longitude; it's not exactly a likely method for creating a unique
culture. And yet somehow, again and again, it does. Vermont is only split from New Hampshire
by a skinny river and a line slapped on a map, but its culture is completely distinct, organic
spinach versus the Old Man of the Mountain. Residents of Massachusetts think Rhode
Islanders are parochial, and Iowans think Kansans are hopeless hicks. And people who move
to Virginia from neighboring North Carolina or West Virginia believe that they have traded up in
the world, to a state that's more prosperous and classy, the heart of the Southern
establishment.
It is this cultural difference that explains one of the mysteries of the current presidential race:
John Kerry, the Massachusetts Yankee, is doing rather well here. He launched his campaign at
Norfolk Naval base with an aircraft carrier in the background, and went on to crush Sen. John
Edwards, a native from North Carolina, in the state's March primary. Most observers had
thought that if Kerry stood any chance in the South, it would be in Tennessee, Arkansas, and
Louisiana – the states which Clinton won and Gore came closest to taking. But soon after he
became his party's presumptive nominee, a strange pattern kept popping up in the polls: In
Virginia, not considered a swing-state, Kerry stayed close behind President Bush. State
Republicans called it a mere blip, complained that the race was still young, and grumbled when
local papers called them up to ask whether Bush might lose the state come November.
Political scientists and pollsters mostly agreed that a Virginia win would be a long-shot for the
man from Massachusetts. But by the eve of the Democratic convention in late July, Kerry and
Bush were in a statistical dead-heat, and while Kerry's campaign chose to pull its Television
advertising from Louisiana and Arkansas, it kept buying ads in Virginia. Six months ago, Larry
Sabato, the esteemed University of Virginia political scientist, told reporters that Kerry was a
dead duck in the state. Now, he tells me, Virginia is still Bush's to lose – but Bush may very
well lose Dominion from the rest of the South also help explain the surprising buoyancy of Kerry's candidacy. Put simply, Virginia is the Massachusetts of the South. Both states pride themselves on the lead roles they played in the nation's founding.
Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, and Monticello are as revered locally as are Plymouth
Rock, Old North Church, and Bunker Hill. Both states have long maritime traditions and
booming high-tech suburbs. Both have cultures that admire good government, revere brave
public service, trust leading families to run things, and generally eschew ideological zealotry
and radicalism.

http://www.alternet.org/module/feed/mobile/?storyID=19993

[blm]

1. I think it's because Virginia has a high population of intel community

and retired and current military and their families.

Intel community KNOWS Bush is responsible for 9-11 and for trying to cook the intel books for Iraq leading us to war.

[demnan]

2. People have been coming to N. VA for jobs

for decades. The south central sections are just as right wing as ever, but the north, Norfolk and SW coal mining areas now have enough people to skew the numbers.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. Kerry announced from Charleston, SC- not Norfolk

One of many problems with this article.
The Massachusetts/Virgina thing is interesting but I think the civil war changed that dynamic.
Virginia is trending Kerry because of demographic shifts- the old Dominion is being absorbed into the BosWash megaoplis.

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/000077.html