Obama team upbeat in Va.

By Olympia Meola
Media General News Service
Published: September 15, 2008

RICHMOND — Despite a recent poll showing Sen. John McCain taking 50 percent of the vote in Virginia, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign manager says the historically red state still is “enormously competitive.”

Virginia and North Carolina remain central to the Illinois senator’s strategy to secure 270 electoral votes and win the presidential election, David Plouffe told reporters in those states on a conference call Friday.

“We’re very confident in our strategy and in our message, and we are focused like a laser beam on states like North Carolina and Virginia,” he said. Plouffe added that Virginia’s viewers will see two new television ads — one talking about change and another calling McCain “out of touch” for, among other things, not knowing how to send e-mail.

President Bush carried Virginia in 2004 with 54 percent of the vote to 46 percent for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic nominee.

Plouffe said he believes Obama can garner more support in Virginia than other Democratic presidential candidates in the recent past. The campaign believes it can do well in Northern Virginia and is showing “surprising strength” in the Tidewater area, Plouffe said.

“We want to do as well as we can in the Southwestern part of the state — very, very important,” he said. Obama has campaigned in Southside and Southwest Virginia three times during his general-election campaign, including his trip Tuesday to Lebanon in Russell County.

Virginia has not backed a Democratic nominee for president in 44 years. A CNN/Time/Opinion Research poll released Wednesday shows that in Virginia, McCain leads Obama 50 percent to 46 percent, outside the margin of error.

Republicans are fighting to keep the state in their column, and this weekend, several GOP officials will tour pockets of Virginia on the “Victory 2008” bus tour.

Between today and tomorrow, the tour will visit the Olde Salem Days Festival in Salem, the Virginia Tech-Georgia Tech football game in Blacksburg, and a Washington Redskins tailgate party in Virginia Beach.

Participants will include McCain’s brother, Joe, and at various stops: Attorney General Bob McDonnell, former Gov. Jim Gilmore, former Sen. George Allen, and Reps. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th, and Thelma Drake, R-2nd.

Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for McCain in Virginia, said yesterday that the enthusiasm behind the GOP ticket here is evidenced by McCain’s rally Wednesday in Fairfax City with his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that drew about 23,000 people. The McCain campaign is confident that in the end, voters will side with their policies.

“They will see Virginia families’ issues line up with McCain-Palin policies more than they would with Obama-Biden,” she said.

Obama’s campaign will continue voter-registration efforts and watch to see how the independent and undecided voters break, Plouffe said.

“It’s a dead heat now, it’s going to be dead heat in October, and I think it’s going to be close on Election Day,” he said.