So.... anyone else find it amusing that Obama could have carried Virginia on NOVA alone (supposing he did as well as Kerry everywhere else -- not hard considering he won by 9.25% of a higher margin nationally than Kerry did)?
McCain made a big but underreported campaign decision to drop all ads from the D.C. media market late in the game and, while that might have been the right move, Obama was absolutely able to capitalize on it.
Can NOVA permanently carry VA for the Dems?
The Democrats also need Richmond and parts of southeastern Virginia.
Northern Virginia has huge numbers of liberal-leaning government employees and contractors who know whence their pay comes, and it has been growing rapidly. This is enough to offset Democratic losses in rural Virginia. Demographic shifts can swing states.
It could also be that Suburbia everywhere has been drifting Democratic. Suburbia is increasingly urban in its needs for Big Government -- public buildings such as schools, roads, and sanitation systems. Suburban life is no longer semi-rural; it is legitimately urban. Even if it doesn't have the poverty of some of the cities that it surrounds, it tends liberal because of its needs. It is also becoming less racist than it used to be.
Not to mention that many of the suburban areas had a large amount of moderate to liberal Rockefeller type of Republicans who have been completely turned off by the rightward shift of the GOP especially on social issues.
