Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Hello from Virginia. Yes, the "real" Virginia. To be sure, I drove to my local post office in Chantilly, Virginia to confirm that my mail would still get through if you added ",VA" behind the city name on my mailing address. They assured me that my county – Loudoun County in Northern Virginia- was still considered part of Virginia. I am very relieved because I am registered to vote in Virginia and I would hate for some McCain campaign vote suppressor to challenge me at the polls on election day because I don’t live in "real Virginia".

Today John McCain is in Northern Virginia (in Woodbrdge), stumping for votes. At the same time, one of his loyal campaign advisors was on MSNBC telling the world that Northern Virginia is not "real Virginia." Apparently, all of us in Northern Virginia have moved out from heavily Democratic Washington DC and taken over this region. Therefore, we aren’t "real" Virginians. As a matter of fact, the only person I know in Northern Virginia who moved out to the suburbs from DC is a Republican. Sadly though, she is not voting for John McCain.

For three decades I have seen this region grow. As I understand it, it is true that many people have migrated into Northern Virginia from out of the state. Those that have come here have come for one main reason – Jobs. Or as Barack Obama likes to call it: "J.O.B.S." Jobs in Northern Virginia – from the technology companies that have driven the internet revolution to the government contractors that dot the Northern Virginia landscape – have fueled Virginia’s economy for nearly 3 decades. Northern Virginia has become a melting pot as people from other parts of Virginia, as well as transplants from the red states and the blue states, have flocked here to stake a claim of their very own American dream. This is something to be proud of – not something to be belittled as the McCain campaign has been doing. My friends and neighbors in Northern Virginia are both natives who have grown up here, come east over the Shenandoahs from Luray and other small towns, come here after college from western Pennsylvania, and from rural Wisconsin, and from a small town in Texas, and from Minnesota, and from New York City, and many other parts of this country and from abroad. They have come to real Virginia seeking opportunity and a place to raise their families. They have come here, just as a lot of folks in rural Southwestern Virginia came across the border from West Virginia, and have become Virginians. They are all Virginia voters and on November 4th they will show the McCain campaign how real their votes are.

While the McCain campaign continues to insult us, the Obama campaign is talking directly to us. Barack Obama has been to Virginia multiple times, as has Joe Biden. I myself have seen Obama twice at his rallies in Virginia. In the Northern Virginia market, Obama’s TV ads – including a very effective ad on healthcare – are on nearly every channel. On my commute to work, I hear Obama ads on the radio. I see Obama/Biden bumper stickers on cars everywhere. From the McCain campaign, I hear radio silence and see almost nothing on television. I do however see three lonely McCain/Palin signs mounted on the median on Route 50 on my way to work – my sole brush with the McCain campaign in Northern Virginia.

The Obama campaign ground game here is impressive. Every weekend volunteers are out on the streets and knocking on doors canvassing. Still others are phone banking. There seems to be an Obama event nearly everywhere. My inbox fills up daily with invitations from local supporters for meet-ups, get togethers, canvassing events, rallies and other events. I even get email from "Northern Virginia Bangladeshis for Obama". There is enthusiasm here like I have never seen in any election in Virginia. Virginia – and, yes, Northern Virginia – is relishing its opportunity to make it an early election night on November 4th. This place is fired up and ready to go.

John McCain cannot win Virginia without getting votes from Northern Virginians. The way to get that vote is not to repeatedly insult Northern Virginians. Note to the McCain campaign: you want to have a culture war, fine. Have it in your own desperate minds. We here in Virginia will vote our pocketbooks and with our brains and send Barack Obama to the White House as the next president of the United States.

Today Barack Obama received some major newspaper endorsements. He was endorsed by The Washington Post, The Lost Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Denver Post. Both the conservative Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times had never before endorsed a Democrat for President. The Los Angeles Times had not endorsed a candidate for President in over 30 years. The Republican-leaning Denver Post, in the key swing state of Colorado, had endorsed George W Bush in 2004. In addition, conservative Philadelphia radio host Michael Smerconish, an influential voice with key constituencies in Pennsylvania, announced today that he is endorsing Barack Obama for President in a Philadelphia Enquirer op-ed that will run this Sunday.

The flood of newspaper endorsements – including those with conservative editorial boards – comes as the race approaches its final two weeks. Coupled with the chorus of voices on the conservative side who are beginning to abandon John McCain, the political mood in the country is shifting – with some finality – toward a Barack Obama victory on November 4th. Newspaper endorsements and the steady collapse of conservative support for John McCain does not assure a result at the ballot box, but they do feed the hardening narrative of this race: that Barack Obama has the temperament and judgment to be our next President and that John McCain is too risky and erratic to be entrusted the presidency.

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Michael Smerconish announced on his radio show:

My conclusion comes after reading the candidates’ memoirs and campaign platforms, attending both party conventions, interviewing both men multiple times, and watching all primary and general election debates. John McCain is an honorable man who has served his country well. But he will not get my vote. For the first time since registering as a Republican 28 years ago, I’m voting for a Democrat for president. I may have been an appointee in the George H.W. Bush administration, and master of ceremonies for George W. Bush in 2004, but last Saturday I stood amidst the crowd at an Obama event in North Philadelphia.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board writes:

However this election turns out, it will dramatically advance America’s slow progress toward equality and inclusion. It took Abraham Lincoln’s extraordinary courage in the Civil War to get us here. It took an epic battle to secure women the right to vote. It took the perseverance of the civil rights movement. Now we have an election in which we will choose the first African-American president . . . or the first female vice president.

In recent weeks it has been easy to lose sight of this history in the making. Americans are focused on the greatest threat to the world economic system in 80 years. They feel a personal vulnerability the likes of which they haven’t experienced since Sept. 11, 2001. It’s a different kind of vulnerability. Unlike Sept. 11, the economic threat hasn’t forged a common bond in this nation. It has fed anger, fear and mistrust.

On Nov. 4 we’re going to elect a president to lead us through a perilous time and restore in us a common sense of national purpose.

The strongest candidate to do that is Sen. Barack Obama. The Tribune is proud to endorse him today for president of the United States.

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Many Americans say they’re uneasy about Obama. He’s pretty new to them.

We can provide some assurance. We have known Obama since he entered politics a dozen years ago. We have watched him, worked with him, argued with him as he rose from an effective state senator to an inspiring U.S. senator to the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

We have tremendous confidence in his intellectual rigor, his moral compass and his ability to make sound, thoughtful, careful decisions. He is ready.

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This endorsement makes some history for the Chicago Tribune. This is the first time the newspaper has endorsed the Democratic Party’s nominee for president.

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Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren’t a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation’s most powerful office, he will prove it wasn’t so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama’s name to Lincoln’s in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes:

It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That’s where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence.

We need a leader who demonstrates thoughtful calm and grace under pressure, one not prone to volatile gesture or capricious pronouncement. We need a leader well-grounded in the intellectual and legal foundations of American freedom. Yet we ask that the same person also possess the spark and passion to inspire the best within us: creativity, generosity and a fierce defense of justice and liberty.

The Times without hesitation endorses Barack Obama for president.

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He is no lone rider. He is a consensus-builder, a leader. As a constitutional scholar, he has articulated a respect for the rule of law and the limited power of the executive that make him the best hope of restoring balance and process to the Justice Department. He is a Democrat, leaning further left than right, and that should be reflected in his nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. This is a good thing; the court operates best when it is ideologically balanced. With its present alignment at seven justices named by Republicans and two by Democrats, it is due for a tug from the left.

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We may one day look back on this presidential campaign in wonder. We may marvel that Obama’s critics called him an elitist, as if an Ivy League education were a source of embarrassment, and belittled his eloquence, as if a gift with words were suddenly a defect. In fact, Obama is educated and eloquent, sober and exciting, steady and mature. He represents the nation as it is, and as it aspires to be.

The Denver Post editorial board writes:

In just 16 days, a presidential campaign that has raged for almost two years will at last come to an end.

In that time, America has undergone profound changes. And for most Americans, those changes have not been for the better.

When the first, absurdly early straw polls were taken in Iowa in 2007, America was torn by a war in Iraq that seemed unwinnable. But the economy seemed reasonably sound.

That preoccupation with the war may help explain why Republicans passed over Mitt Romney’s successful record of job creation in favor of war hero and foreign-policy specialist John McCain. On the Democratic side, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who wasn’t even in Congress when the war began, bested Sen. Hillary Clinton in part because she voted to authorize the war.

Americans, as we now know, wanted change.

But as this race nears the finish line, America’s priorities have changed, too.

The "surge" has reduced the level of violence in Iraq and President Bush has begun modest troop withdrawals. Sens. McCain and Obama differ mostly about the details and pace of future withdrawals.

But the speed and virulence of the worldwide liquidity crisis, caused by the collapse of the junk mortgage market, has stunned most Americans and has led voters, who now review their shrinking retirement funds and rising unemployment rates with alarm, to focus overwhelmingly on America’s economic ills.

Given this inescapable economic agenda, The Post believes Barack Obama is better equipped to lead America back to a prosperous future.

It’s time to change course.

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As novelist Christopher Buckley said in endorsing Obama, the Illinois senator "has a first-rate intellect and a first-rate temperament."

With the help and prayers of the American people, we believe those talents can also make Barack Obama a great president.