Obama to open Lynchburg office

By Ray Reed

Published: July 17, 2008

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign will open an office in downtown Lynchburg on Saturday as part of a voter registration drive to increase Democratic support in localities that usually vote Republican.

The office will be at 12th and Main streets in a building that recently housed the La Plaza Alegre restaurant, according to Obama organizers in Lynchburg.

Obama offices are to be opened in 20 cities around Virginia in the coming week — an unprecedented effort in Virginia by a Democratic presidential candidate, according to Bob Gibson of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership in Charlottesville.

Republicans plan to have offices in at least five cities — in eastern Virginia and Roanoke — to boost Sen. John McCain’s campaign.

Gibson said both the Obama and McCain campaigns are taking Virginia seriously.

“The last time I recall a Democratic presidential candidate doing anything serious in Virginia was in 1964 when LBJ (Lyndon Johnson) took a campaign train ride through Virginia,” Gibson said.

“They stopped in Culpeper, and several political leaders, including Mills Godwin, climbed on the train.” Godwin was serving his first term as governor, and was a Democrat at the time. Godwin later won a gubernatorial election as a Republican.

“The Democrats are known in Virginia for not campaigning for president since 1964,” the last time a Democrat won Virginia’s electoral votes, Gibson said. Bill Clinton came to Virginia “hardly at all,” Gibson said.

Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for the Obama campaign in Virginia, said that Saturday’s effort in Lynchburg would include a session to train volunteers on how to register new voters.

Afterward, those volunteers will go through the city looking for potential first-time voters. The campaign is challenging its paid staff and volunteers to add 151,000 people to Virginia’s voting rolls, Griffis said.

“We anticipate a strong presence on the streets of Lynchburg on Saturday,” Griffis said.

That, too, would be unprecedented, Gibson said.

“I think we are in for a real ride,” with many TV ads for both candidates, Gibson added.