Time: Why Virginia Worries the GOP

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1126781,00.html

Jerry Kilgore, a Republican candidate for Governor whose mountain twang kept him out of his own ads for much of the campaign, was looking starched and chipper Sunday as he shook hands outside the Falls Church, a 273-year-old Episcopal congregation near Washington that has a number of Bush Administration luminaries in its pews. Falls Church is a Democratic oasis, but these were his people. "In Falls Church, of all places, a landslide!" Kilgore said delightedly before heading inside. He is Baptist, but joined fellow parishioners in kneeling for prayers. The service ran long and so he sneaked out the side after receiving Communion and headed to McLean Bible Church, a non-denominational mega-church where he was greeted with applause at the Welcome Center.

Even for Election Eve, Kilgore is unusually nervous. On Tuesday night, he will either be Governor-elect of the Old Dominion, one of the nation's most reliably Republican states, or poster boy for his national party's woes heading into next year's mid-term elections. "We can't even win in Virginia?" Republicans will be asking themselves if the former state attorney general does not pull it out in his neck-and-neck race against the Democratic Lieutenant Governor, Timothy M. Kaine. "The conventional wisdom will be that the Republicans are on the verge of a massive meltdown in 2006," says the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato, whose quotes to national reporters will do much to define that conventional wisdom. "It's easy enough to say these off-year elections are a harbinger," Sabato tells TIME, "but history shows that is only rarely the case." Activists in both parties are crediting Kaine, 47, with an edge in closing momentum over Kilgore, 44. The two are tied in key polls and Democrats usually need to be up considerably to overcome the Republican turnout machine in "the mother of Presidents." Political historians point out, however, that if Kilgore triumphs, it would be the first time since 1973 that the party in the White House had won the Virginia statehouse.

President George W. Bush, who carried Virginia by 9 points in 2004 and 8 in 2000, is dropping into the Commonwealth on Monday night on his way home from South America to headline a turn-out-the-vote rally for Kilgore at a Richmond hangar. Kilgore caused a stir last month when he did not join Bush for a "War on Terror" appearance in Norfolk, a military community that along with Richmond is the biggest swing area in this race. It was described as a sign that Bush's woes were dragging Kilgore down, although Republicans say he and the White House decided together that Bush's presence would make an official event look too political and it would not have been a good use of his time. Now the candidate tells TIME: "We're with the president and glad he's on our team. This'll be great to fire up our base."

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After all, his poll numbers are at an all time low. So how is bush campaigning for Kilgore going to help? Perhaps the dummy in chief reads something else into Kilgore's last name. Or perhaps he's just an arrogant out of touch moron. But, I guess he won't be talking to anyone else but all five of his supporters. Good luck to Kaine. It would be a nice pickup if the Dems were to win this Governor's race.

* is trying to ride on Kilgore's coattails.

with the opportunity to be one of the first states to flip off the GOP. Syonara!

I agree that a win for Kaine would be a victory for the Democratic party as well, but it's important to point out that we already have a Democratic governor, who has something like a 70 percent approval rating. Not to mention the Republican faction is showing signs of serious discontent within the party thanks to Potts running as an independent.

Trust me, we have our share of right-wing whackos, but I think this election will more likely show whether Virginia will continue to be reliably moderate, or if it will shift right. I wouldn't go so far as to say we were "Reliably Republican." Not yet, anyway.

The "Reliably Republican" meme manages expectations among the press that work to our favor. Don't sweat it.

NGU.

Bush is tired and pissed from a disasterous SA trip where he met rowdy protesters chanting,,,,stone the mother fucker...

Bush gonna look like shit and talk like shit too.

We all know how all his U.S. stops are screened to keep us lefties out.

Sad when we have a dufus for a president...how could this happen in a Nation that put men on the Moon?

Only with the help of them closet dufueses out there sucking for the BS.....

He's already starting to die in the polls - Bush would put a nail into his coffin