The pundit battle continues: Is Virginia really up for grabs in November?
On C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” this morning, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) shared this insight with host Steve Scully:

SCULLY: Virginia for Barack Obama?

FORBES: At the end of the day, I think McCain wins Virginia.  I remember in June [1996] when Bob Dole was behind, everyone was saying then that Virginia was going to be lost, he came back and won the state.  I think at the end of the day, Virginia goes for McCain.

SCULLY: But haven’t demographics changed in Northern Virginia and elsewhere?

FORBES: They have changed somewhat, but I think a lot of instances people underplay the     role that candidates have. Still, Virginia is a heavy military state, a state with a lot of veterans, and I think that when all the smoke clears at the end of the day, McCain still wins in Virginia.

If Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) is quoted in a story talking about Republicans, chances are the word “brand” isn’t far behind.  Today’s paper is no exception:

Davis, who is leaving Congress after this year, said McCain has the advantage of being a well-defined brand in the minds of many voters. And he said there is plenty of time left to burnish it.

Spotted at Skeptical Observor via Not Larry Sabato:

I was just cruising the Internet, and came across the biography of the Democrat Party’s nominee for Virginia’s Sixth Congressional District: Sam Rasoul.

It seems that Mr. Rasoul’s biography makes reference to having visited “Palestine.”

Interesting, but Mr. Rasoul doesn’t appear to be old enough to have visited “Palestine,” which hasn’t existed since 1948. It’s “Israel,” Mr. Rasoul.

The reference itself speaks volumes about Rasoul’s radical politics. And while it is about what I’ve come to expect from the modern Democrat Party, one wonders why those who trashed clearly loyal Americans on the flimsiest of “evidence,” using guilt-by-association tactics, haven’t turned their attention to the actual statements of Mr. Rasoul.

We learn this about Virginia Senator Jim Webb:

Webb fired up the crowd this morning at the Democratic convention in Hampton asking thousands of activists to support Mark R. Warner for U.S. Senate and Sen. Barack Obama for president this fall.

“People really want to see the right kind of new direction,'’ he said.

Webb, who came out to the stage while Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” blared in the background, spoke about getting people involved in the Democratic party.

“We’re not backing down,'’ he said. “We’re not going away.”

Tom Petty’s been getting a vigorous workout this campaign season.

Who was the last candidate to feature the ageless rocker so prominently in campaign rallies?

Hillary Clinton.  Certainly you remember Hillary’s endless use of the song during her campaign.

Thank goodness Hillary didn’t inspire Webb to associate instead with “American Girl.”

Meantime, Senator-in-waiting Mark Warner told this to the crowd:

“Today’s the day I want to make it clear what I am focused on.  The only job I am running for this year is United States Senate.”

Now there’s a declaration of interest in the vice presidency if we’ve ever heard one.  Here’s betting Barack Obama could get Warner to back down down from that position, real quick-like.

On Tuesday Barack Obama made a big speech at the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul.  That’s where John McCain will get his party’s nomination in September.

Tonight Barack Obama will be at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Virginia.  What’s next at Nissan Pavilion?  Tomorrow — Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell delivers the commencement address at the Battlefield High School Graduation.

If the Obama traffic jam at Nissan is still bad tomorrow night, you might want to stay in place for McDonnell’s speech.

Remember that moment of epiphany at Woodstock, when everyone realized they had done something incredible for America — their massive traffic jam had shut down the New York Thruway?   We’re all still proud of the ‘lil dears for that.

Well, Barack Obama might do the same for the Washington area today:

Not even Republicans could have planned a worse combination of time and place for a rally in support of Sen. Barack Obama than today’s planned 6 p.m. event at Nissan Pavilion.

The 25,000-capacity amphitheater is served by a single two-lane road off a chronically jammed commuter highway, Interstate 66, that routinely backs up from 3 p.m. on a typical weekday until long past 6. There is also major construction that could force supporters of the presidential candidate through a bottleneck that brings the four-lane westbound side of the highway down to two lanes.

“This sounds like its going to be an absolute disaster,” said Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart, a Republican. “Obviously, I have no influence on Barack Obama, but if I did, I would ask him to move the event up a little.”

And if you’re stuck in that massive traffic jam, and you need a little relief — boy, do we have a great solution for you.

Spend those hours going nowhere in your car by reading these soothing, soaring, inspirational words from Obama’s transportation policy paper:

Strengthen Metropolitan Planning to Cut Down Traffic Congestion: Barack Obama believes we must take steps at the front-end as well as the back-end of the planning process to cut down traffic congestion in our large and medium-size cities. Obama supported a measure authored by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) to mandate states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations create policies that incentivize greater bicycle and pedestrian usage of sidewalks and roads. As president, Obama will work to provide states and local governments with the resources they need to address sprawl and create more livable communities.

Ah, feel better now?  Maybe flipping the bird at the guy ahead of you might help, too.

As a loyal Redskin fan, this blog’s ears perk up whenever we see mention of the hated Cowboys — and politics.
But there it was, in today’s story about Jim Gilmore raising money for his Virginia Senate run:

Pete Coors, chairman of Coors Brewing, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, golfer Ben Crenshaw and Louis Beecherl, former chief executive of Texas Oil and Gas, have donated to the campaign in recent weeks, according to the statement.

Staubach.  Yuch!  Fortunately, we also saw this picture of Virginia’s Attorney General Bob McDonnell, who married a Redskins cheerleader from the Staubach era.  We felt great relief.  All is well again in Redskins country.

First course, the appetizer, was dog food:

“The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf,” said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

Now he’s moved on to the main course, human food:

Hundreds of grass-roots organizations, including food banks, supported the legislation. The National Farmers Union rallied more than 1,000 organizations in favor of the override.

“Although it’s pork to most of the country, it’s prime rib to the farm belt,” Davis said.

E.J. Dionne breathlessly writes this in his Friday column:

Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, who is retiring, confessed to me that if his party “were dog food, they’d take us off the shelf and put us in a landfill.”

Hate to betray the sanctity of a confession — but it’s really not.

Davis has been using that line for a while.

For example, it was in Dionne’s own newspaper, the Washington Post, on March 13:

“The House Republican brand is so bad right now that if it were a dog food, they’d take it off the shelf,” said retiring Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who chaired the NRCC for four years earlier this decade.

Oh dear.

What does New Media Strategies — the kind and gracious publisher of this blog — look like?

Here’s one exclusive view from inside our 14th floor conference room in our Rosslyn World Headquarters.

That’s Virginia Technology Secretary Aneesh Chopra speakiing to bloggers, our staff, and Virginia political officials on May 8, 2008.