Divided Ds, motivated Rs, and other ’09 trends

Chris Graham

The formal entree of former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe into the 2009 governor’s race on Monday means all the players are present and accounted for now. McAuliffe, who filed papers today to run for governor, but is officially still only exploring a possible run, will compete for the Democratic nomination with Northern Virginia…

U.S. Senate: The radical centrist will shake things up in D.C.

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] I was working for an ultraconservative newspaper based in Charlottesville – not exactly the best place for somebody who would later become the chair of a Democratic Party committee to be, but it paid the bills. It also gave me a different perspective on Mark Warner, at first a skeptical…

Fifth District: A vote for solutions, not controversy

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The Danville Register and Bee endorsement editorial put it well, I think. Noting that the paper hadn’t endorsed a Democrat since Virgil Goode was a Democrat, the editorial board relayed that it is changing course not because it is leaving Virgil Goode. “Virgil Goode,” the Register and Bee said, “has…

David Reynolds: The Pendulum

David Reynolds

Column by David Reynolds As usual Thomas Jefferson got it right. He wrote, “The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny is to illuminate the minds of the people.” TJ would not have been pleased with the lack of illumination during the 2008 presidential campaign – much heat, little light. Jefferson…

Harrisonburg: Obama rallies Valley Dems

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] One news organization estimated that there were 28,000 people all told in and around the Convocation Center on the campus of James Madison University for the Tuesday campaign rally featuring Democratic Party presidential nominee Barack Obama. I don’t know that I could dispute the figure, based on the queue, or…

Harrisonburg: Obama to rally Valley on eve of historic election

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Why in the world, you’re asking yourself, is Barack Obama spending half his day on Tuesday in the Central Shenandoah Valley that went 70 percent for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004? A better question, given a look at the ’08 poll numbers, might be, Why in…

Waynesboro: Will her first vote be counted?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Sonja Hoge was very much looking forward to voting in her first presidential election. A Waynesboro High School graduate and Virginia Commonwealth University sophomore, Hoge submitted an absentee-ballot request in August before she went back to school and got it in the mail back to Waynesboro last week….

Waynesboro: River City 2020

Chris Graham

Column by Chris Graham [email protected] Lee Wolverton and I don’t agree on much, so when we agree, that means something. And we agree that Waynesboro is facing a critical challenge. Lee has seen what we both think is happening to Waynesboro happen elsewhere. A small town struggles with its identity when the factories close up…

Politics: Bogus registration claims a ‘smokescreen’ for GOP suppression efforts

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Republicans and their allies in the mainstream news media are stating publicly that it’s Democrats who are trying to rig the 2008 elections by submitting voter-registration applications with phony names and other such chicanery. Funny how the media is either missing out on the real story or is working in…

White House ’08: The Obama Effect

Chris Graham

Column by Chris Graham [email protected] Not a day goes by that I don’t hear from an Obama-Biden supporter about the Wilder Effect – or what some folks call the Bradley Effect, the basics being a major-party candidate who is African-American whose support in pre- and post-election polling registers higher than actual performance in the polls….