Real Virginia was Really Useless

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I think, also, that 2008 will be the exception in terms of how the Democrats perform in southwestern Virginia.  At the same time Obama was losing badly, we saw Mark Warner rack up a huge margin the area.  The right Democrat will still do extremely well in that area, and, combined with the expected big victories in NOVA, the Democrats will continue to win Virginia for a long time.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Southwestern VA doesn't matter.  compare the vote totals there to NOVA.

I know, I'm just syaing that the Democrats will normally need even less of a win in NOVA, because they'll have votes coming in from the Southwest.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Warner vs. Gilmore probably isn't a good model for how future competitive races will roll.

Perhaps so; look, then, at Webb in '06 or Kaine in '05.  Neither candidate lost nearly as badly as Obama did.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Southwestern Virginia is much a part of Appalachia, and politically it is much like several states that Bill Clinton carried but Obama got trounced in -- Tennessee, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas, not to mention southern Missouri. Southern moderate populists like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter (in 1976), and Mark Warner can carry these regions as northern liberals can't.

Exactly.  Kerry and Obama were poor fits for the region, while a candidate like Clark, Edwards, Warner, or Hillary would have done much better.