Obama Fighting For GOP's Rural Turf

Washington Post: Campaign Presence In Small Virginia Town Symbolizes Effort To Compete Across The Map

(Washington Post)  This story was written by Kevin Merida.

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Highway 47 winds past Elke's Dog Resort, past the big yard full of old tires and shiny hubcaps, and the barren, barbed-wired fields with horses in the distance. Like many small towns in rural America, this one has a Main Street, which you'll come to soon enough, and right there next to the Municipal Building is the first presidential campaign office that longtime residents can remember seeing.

Sen. Barack Obama's field office here was once a dress shop but is now the hub for a four-county voter turnout operation in Southside Virginia, where Democrats typically get clobbered. The roster of Democratic politicians who have been whipped in this region is impressive.

Take Mecklenburg County, where Chase City is located: Jim Webb was beaten here by 19 points in 2006, Tim Kaine by 12 points in 2005, John Kerry by 16 points in 2004, Al Gore by 16 points in 2000. Even Mark Warner, the most successful Democrat of note in Southside Virginia, lost in Mecklenburg County en route to winning the governorship in 2001.

That Obama would open an office here, one of at least 49 across the state, is as much a curiosity as it is a symbol of the campaign's efforts to stretch the electoral map well beyond traditional Democratic territory. It is a strategy that is testing the relationship between politics and community, especially in small towns like Chase City, where the canvassers are local volunteers who often eat, pray and shop with those whose votes they are soliciting.

Gayle Clancy, who has lived here for 22 years and owns the Main Street Cafe, views the Obama office as a marvel, even though she never votes, will not vote next week, and considers politics a dirty business "all the way down to town politics." Still. "This is the first time I remember seeing a presidential campaign office since I've been living here. Absolutely. I was very, very surprised. I was like, 'Wow!' They're there until 10 o'clock at night sometimes."

Recently, the Obama campaign office had a bomb scare -- false alarm -- and the mere fact of it became a happening. A package received in the mail contained a smudged return address from Chevy Chase, Md., and because volunteers weren't expecting the parcel -- and had been alerted by the campaign hierarchy to report suspicious mailings -- local police were called. This set in motion a five-hour chain of events that included evacuating the office and an adjacent building, yellow-taping the block, calling in the Virginia State Police, the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department and the city's volunteer fire department and rescue squad, and notifying federal authorities.

"They even sent in the little robot," said Clancy. She was referring to the state's bomb-detecting robot, whose presence elicited oohs and ahhs from the gathered crowd. In the end, all the commotion was over a padded manila envelope containing Obama buttons and bumper stickers donated by a Montgomery County couple.

Volunteers working long hours to mine votes in Southside Virginia -- the region east of the Blue Ridge Mountains and south of the James River -- have had bigger problems than false bomb scares. Barry Carter, a small-business owner and chairman of the Occoneechee tribe in Virginia, bought 200 signs through the Democratic Party and put them up in the Clarksville area of Mecklenburg. He soon discovered that more than 150 of them had disappeared, and a handful more were slashed, he said. The peculiar thing, Carter noted, was that the Obama signs had been placed next to those of Democratic congressional candidate Tom Perriello, and his signs were untouched. "Both are Democrats. They're running on similar issues," Carter said of Obama and Perriello. "In our mind, it's a racial issue."

Carter reported the signs as stolen to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Department. "Every campaign, we have problems with signs somewhere," said Maj. James Snead, the chief deputy sheriff, who said patrols had been beefed up in the neighborhoods where the Obama signs had disappeared.

While a recent Washington Post poll had Obama with an eight-point lead in the state, the difficulties in Southside Virginia cannot be underestimated. Democrats have long struggled in rural America. According to polling data, Obama trails Sen. John McCain among rural voters both nationally and in Virginia, pulling 40 percent in the nation and 43 percent in the state. Those percentages roughly match Sen. John F. Kerry's performance in 2004.

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Read the latest news from the campaign in Virginia from CBS News and around the Web

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The 5th Congressional District contains the heart of Southside, landscape that is both flat and hilly and steeped in history. This is where Robert E. Lee surrendered and Harry Byrd resisted school integration, where textile mills died and tobacco production is mostly a romantic memory. The district's politics are conservative, as embodied by six-term congressman Virgil Goode. Elected as a Democrat in 1996 -- perhaps the most conservative House Democrat in the nation -- he soon found political life too uncomfortable under his own party's banner and ran for reelection in 2000 as an independent. He switched parties in 2002, and has been running successfully as a Republican ever since.

McCain has but 21 offices in the state, and no heavy presence in Southside, but he has Goode and George Allen and Jerry Kilgore, all Republicans who have done well here. "We think we're going to do very well in all of Southside," said McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho. "They're always going to have more offices than us, more staff than us, more money than us. But we have our battle-tested staff and volunteers who know how to win Virginia."

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Ways To Win
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Not many political observers are betting on Obama in Southside -- even Obama supporters are uncertain. But campaign spokesman Clark Stevens said making the effort is the point. "It's important for us to have a presence in as many communities as we can. We are out in areas that may be traditionally more Republican, but we are interested in connecting with as many voters as possible. Offices are about giving members of the community the tools they need and the information they need to make a decision on November 4th."

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Chase City, 80 miles southwest of Richmond, is where the Obama campaign decided to concentrate its forces for the Southside battle. It is a town of 2,457 people, according to Census Bureau figures, and is 54 percent white and 45 percent black. Those demographics have not put a dent in the GOP hold on the region, but Obama volunteers are hoping that a surge in black voter turnout will help this time. Not to mention some surprises. Former longtime mayor A. Duke Reid, whom volunteers had counted as a McCain supporter, recently indicated he was backing the senator from Illinois instead. Looking back on his 10 years as mayor, Reid linked his service to what he believes Obama is trying to do through his candidacy. "I guess the biggest thing I've always wanted in Chase City is to make sure we had no racial divides," said Reid, who is white. "There's not a single black person in town who could say I'm pro-white."

[targaray-2009]

"Make-Believe" Maverick

John McSame likes to talk about his so-called experience in Washington and how he has been TESTED, but Senator Barack Obama has not been. Well "Lil Johnny" here is your test score - FAILED ...

[targaray-2009]

- WHAT IS a GOP?

- Is George W. Bush still a Republican?
- Are John McSame and Sarah Failin running away from their Bush Republican Heritage?
- Is this some type of "mavericky behavior" or Are they afraid to be seen in public with the President???

[noloyalisti]

Maybe even the rural right wing voters will take their heads out of their butts and see the daylight for Obama. After all he promises jobs, tax cuts, better security and support of the troops. McSame and McQuaylin OFFER NONE OF THAT. Only more disastrus right wing policies.

[iamdemocrat]

(HONOLULU)(November 1, 2008) Internet powerhouse Andy Martin has ignited a firestorm in Hawai''i over Barack Obama''s bogus "original" birth certificate. Martin won a stunning victory Friday afternoon (October 31st) when the State of Hawai''i backed his assertion that there was an original, "typewritten, 1961" birth certificate, called a "Certificate of Live Birth" or "COLB" in Hawai''i, that no one has previously seen. Hawai''i officials retrieved and examined the document after Martin filed a lawsuit seeking access to the historic 1961 original.

Obama has falsely claimed to have placed the "original" on the Internet. Factcheck.org has falsely claimed to have seen this document and posted it on the Internet; that is not true. CNN has falsely ridiculed Martin.

Hawai''i officials have now refuted Obama''s false assertion.

Martin''s victory in Honolulu will roil the final weekend of the presidential campaign. Internet chatter is expected to explode as the issue moves to the front page over Saturday and Sunday. Swing voters may be swayed by the exposure that Obama has brazenly been lying to the American people. "We just lobbed a grenade into the final weekend of the presidential campaign," says Andy.

"I am ecstatic. I called Obama a liar. I called Factcheck.org ''ObamaLies.org.'' I said CNN was sloppy and lazy and wrong. And I was right. The State of Hawai''i has now backed me up.
-andy martin

[skeetchamp]

Obama and his people should stop spending so much time in what used to be reliable Republican states and go back to more solidly Democratic states where if they secure wins they will get the 270 electoral votes they need. Don''t go for the overkill, just stick with the sure thing.

[mjthere]

Silly Sarah is having a baby!! - medical records awaited

[merlgrey]

''Hes still a coward, still a liar, still a friend of anti-Semites, and is probably one himself...''
Posted by obamasaho2 at 12:23 PM

obamasaho2- im not voting obama or mcain, but please explain why obama is an anti semite- or is friends of anti semites?

[windmaster12]

Country First?
Vietnam Vets against Mccain!!!

According to documentation obtained by the U.S. Veteran Dispatch, not only did POW McCain promise to give the communists "military information" in exchange for special hospital care not ordinarily available to U.S. prisoners, but he also made numerous antiwar radio broadcasts.

This is a violation of the Military Code of Conduct and is considered collaborating with the enemy.

The following is McCain''s own admission of collaboration in an article he wrote, printed May 14, 1973 in U.S. News and World Report:

"I think it was on the fourth day [after being shot down] that two guards came in, instead of one. One of them pulled back the blanket to show the other guard my injury. I looked at my knee. It was about the size, shape and color of a football. I remembered that when I was a flying instructor a fellow had ejected from his plane and broken his thigh. He had gone into shock, the blood had pooled in his leg, and he died, which came as quite a surprise to usa man dying of a broken leg.

Then I realized that a very similar thing was happening to me.

"When I saw it, I said to the guard, `O.K., get the officer.''

"An officer came in after a few minutes. It was the man that we came to know very well as `The Bug.'' He was a psychotic torturer, one of the worst fiends that we had to deal with. I said, `O.K., I''ll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital.''"

GOOGLE:

MCCAIN COLLABORATOR

[daffy64]

He''''s still a coward, still a liar, still a friend of anti-Semites, and is probably one himself, and certainly no friend of the U.S. Armed Forces or America itself.

Congrats, Leftists - you''''ve chosen the worst candidate and you are going to lose big-time. The Democratic Party will need a major overhaul after choosing traitors like Kerry and Obama.

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You''re in denial.

Come back on Wednesday and analyze why Obama won.

[caliguy55]

I was shocked this morning, when I heard Gov. Schwarzenegger say that Sen. Barack Obama should use some of the millions he collected in contributions to his Presidential campaign to pay the Wall Street Banks, financial firms, etc., to help with the financial crisis they created. For at least a month, I''ve heard nothing but accusations of "socialism" spew from Johnny McSame''s campaign. Now, that same campaign is calling for communism in its rankest form, when it wants to confiscate the wealth of individuals and spread it among individuals and financial institutions, which were too stupid to manage their own wealth. Come of Johnny McSame, you senile old phart, you were standing right next to the terminator, when he made these comments. I want to know whether you are a freaking communist like your campaign buddy. Obama/Biden 2008!!!

[bigsk8fan]

go get ''em barack. hope over fear. change is coming. 01/20/09 end of an error.

If I was a prominent republican I would not run after the Bush fiasco. They threw this old man up as a sacrifice because his future is behind him. The "Obama Express" rolls on...

[spinproof]

No matter how bad the Democrats and Obama are portrayed, this time around the Republicans are far worst and have the bad track record to prove it.