I've been driving two hours a day, three days a week, to canvass in Harrisonburg, VA, and Rockingham County. The first mountain I drive over is part of the Allegheny Range, which means I'm crossing the Continental Divide. The next one is tortuous North Mt., which leads me to Franklin, the bucolic county seat in WV's Pendleton County, where the history-laden indigenous folks are Democrats because their ancestors were Confederates, which today gives their mindset a decidedly conservative cast. Next it's into the George Washington National Forest and over Shenandoah Mountain into John Boy Walton country and...The Valley, the biggest GOP stronghold in the state four years ago.
It's the home of the old Harry Byrd Machine, which means those who work there are supporting the Campaign for Change in the literal and spiritual home of Massive Resistance to Desegregation in response to Brown v. Board of Education in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
I knew our chances for success in The Valley--as Stonewall Jackson said, "If The Valley is lost, Virginia is lost"--were good over a month ago, when an older but still prominent Republican lady told me her entire family was voting and working for Barack. She would only concede at that time that she was an Obama lean but that she was offended by the presence of Sarah Palin on the GOP's national ticket.
"I have standards, you know," she chuckled.
"By chance," I asked, "are you a Lynwood Holton Republican?"
Chuckling delightedly again, she said, "Well, yes I am. You see, some of us never wanted Virginia to be known for racial intolerance."
And there it was. In crytalline form. The migration of Byrd Machine Democrats into the GOP in the 1970s had turned Virginia and that state's GOP into a reactionary Southern redoubt.
Now, one of Holton's daughters is married to Gov. Tim Kaine, and The Valley is turning blue.
Barack's visit to Harrisonburg will seal the deal.
We will win Virginia.
Barack will be at the James Madison University Convocation Center on Tuesday. The event starts at 5:15 pm. The doors open at 3:15.
The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required. Space is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Lynwood Holton
Byrd Machine