Conservatives have been in denial about Virginia for years

[DS0816]

No they haven't stop using selective articles to help yourself feel secure about the success of your party. It's like wishful thinking about having more money in the future. You're trolling.

Selective articles about conservatives in denial... you're the epitome of a conservative in denial.  You argue against every post that says Virginia is moving to the left and just say elections go in cycles.  You also ignore posts with extensive data about Virginia's demographic and population changes, but then write terse arguments regarding more general articles.  Virginia is gone for your party...  Even the current Governor admits that the growth of NOVA is making it very hard for Republicans to win Virginia in a national election, especially if they espouse conservative views.

In 10 years NOVA will be about 40% of the statewide vote.  Good luck winning a statewide election when nearly half the electorate are liberal DC area voters.  I guess you guys can just cut into the huge margins Democrats get in Richmond and the black areas downstate...

You are wrong. I've agreed that Virginia has been moving to the left, but it's not enough yet to go against a Republican winner. By 2016 it might be a different story or it might not. As I've stated Obama is a tremendous candidate for Virginia so the results in the last two elections have been skewed slightly to the left for the state. This is all because big government in D.C. is bleeding into our state. Some people may be in denial but what are you getting at?

Think about what you're saying!! You're totally in denial. Virginia didn't vote Obama, it voted Democratic. Don't make excuses.

Imagine we're living 25 years in the past. I say to you- "In the next 25 years there will be two Democratic presidents. One will be a moderate(ish) white governor from Arkansas, nicknamed Bubba. The other one will be a half black senator from Illinois who shares a name with a middle eastern dictator. (can you imagine describing Obama to someone back then??) Then I ask you which one will win Virginia twice. Who would you pick?

Fantastic!

[DS0816]

… I get bothered sometimes when one thinks that one party will dominate for a generation or more (which is the aspiration of many D's around here too). Its pretty unprecedented and hasn't happened since post Lincoln.…

Your response wasn't directed at me. But I can say that a part of what you're touching on is what I find intriguing. I think not too many forum posters with their impressive knowledge historically concerning the Electoral College had that before they arrived here. (Oh, some did!) What I will admit is that I didn't notice five, ten, twenty years ago that the country has had many periods of living in realigning elections in which one party was dominant with winning the presidency.  

I am a believer in Walter Dean Burnham's 30- to 40-year estimate of "cycles." That there is at least one catalyst which prompts a change that lasts for a long term. From when the Republican party first competed in 1856, those realigning elections began in 1860 (Republican; 7 of the next 9 cycles). The ones which followed were in 1896 (Republican; 7 of the next 9); 1932 (Democratic; 7 of the next 9); 1968 (Republican; 7 of the next 10); and I'll add to this 2008 (Democratic).

Realigning presidential periods were cited even before the Republicans of the 1850s. Though forum poster barfbag alluded to a pattern where one party tends to win no more than [2] consecutive cycles before a party-flipping of the White House, barfbag also has acknowledged, to some extent, cycles which went beyond two in a row. The last realignment saw a three-peat for the Republicans, with all from the 1980s, and no realigning presidential period—pitting Team Red-vs.-Team Blue—has had a limit of just two. Mathematically it cannot play out that way.