ABSTRACT
We’re writing this ‘round midnight in the “real” part of VA—south of DC’s suburbs. Okay, it may only be authentically simple minds like Sarah Palin’s who believe in a “real” Virginia. But this election season, even more sophisticated conventional political wisdom has proven unerringly wrong. How does one categorize the carpenter afraid to admit to his friends that he’s voting for a black man? The lifelong Republican housewife who confesses to terror of a possible Palin presidency... but has a “McCain/Palin” sign in her yard? The accountant who still thinks Republicans are better for the economy but worries about the country 127going in the wrong direction and so canvasses for both Senate candidate Mark Warner and Obama? Or the teenage Obama intern who now boasts of people coming in from Maryland on a Saturday to push Virginia Democrats across the finish line? Virginians today elude the stereotypes for white guys or suburbanites, for working Joe’s or soccer moms, even for CEO’s or evangelists. Here the presidential race has seeped into all the hills and valleys, the shop floors and McMansions.
