Obama opens lead over McCain in Virginia

Back earlier in the year there were those among Hillary supporters how scoffed at the idea that Barack Obama could carry Virginia - I have a $100 bet with a contributor to Pam's House Blend even though Virginia elected a black governor close to two decades ago. Now, polls are showing that Obama is leading McCain in Virginia. This has got to have the GOP terrified despite whatever spin that may be put out. The fact that it looks like Mark Warner will beat Jim Gilmore by a landslide in the race to replace retiring U.S. Senator John Warner will only make it all worse. Virginia is changing, albeit not quickly enough for my tastes, and the far right reactionaries are slowly becoming out numbered by the progressive votes of Northern Virginia and the older cities (Virginia Beach and particularly Chesapeake remain bastions of wing nut thinking). Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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Democrat Barack Obama has opened a solid lead over Republican John McCain in Virginia, a state that last backed a Democrat for president in 1964, according to a poll published Wednesday. A CNN-Time poll of 684 likely Virginia voters conducted Sunday through Tuesday shows 53 percent of those surveyed backed Obama while 44 percent backed McCain. The head-to-head results are comfortably outside the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points in the race for the 13 electoral votes that the GOP has owned for 40 years.

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While the poll was heartening to Obama supporters in Virginia, one prominent backer was skeptical as a result of personal experience. "I hope this isn't deja vu all over again," said former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. "I'd take it with a grain of salt." In 1989, Wilder became the nation's first elected black governor by only one-tenth of a percentage point over a white opponent despite polls that indicated he would win easily, as his two white Democratic ticket mates did.

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Wilder said race is not nearly the factor it was in his election, but cautioned Obama - who would be the first black president - against accepting so wide a poll advantage at face value. "I would advise him not to be swayed one way or another by these polls except to say that we have to work harder," said Wilder, who is retiring after one term as Richmond's mayor.

Virginia's Doug Wilder, Nation's First Elected Black Governor, Endorses Obama

I have been saying for some time that Barick Obama's race does not make him unelectable as Hillary Clinton and others are whispering - look at Doug Wilder who was elected Governor of Virginia in November 1989. He served from 1990 to 1994 and if he had been able to run for a second term (Virginia does not allow consecutive terms for the office of Governor), he might well have been re-elected. Believe me, in 1989, Virginia was a far more conservative state than it is now and Wilder's election was all the more notable. Not surprisingly, Wilder has come out and endorsed Barack Obama who has some of the characteristics Wilder presented in 1989. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot's story (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SOU_OBAMA_WILDER_VAOL-?SITE=VANOV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT):

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor, endorsed Barack Obama's bid to become the nation's first black president on Friday. Wilder, Virginia's governor from 1990 to 1994 and now Richmond's mayor, praised Obama as "a leader who can move beyond the parochialisms of the past."

"Sen. Barack Obama brings forth all of these qualities. I am tremendously impressed with him and have said many favorable things about him in the past," Wilder wrote in a three-paragraph statement. "Our country is in desperate need of a new direction, new ideas, and new solutions to resolve the circumstances that the U.S. has shouldered in recent years," he wrote.

In the statement issued as an official city news release, Wilder pledged to campaign nationally for Obama "to the fullest extent possible that my schedule will allow." Wilder, a 76-year-old grandson of slaves, campaigned briefly for a 1992 presidential run but quit the race before that year's primaries. Virginia's current governor, Timothy M. Kaine, endorsed Obama in February and said Friday that he might campaign for Obama on his own time on a weekend, even as he braces for a busy legislative session that opens Wednesday.