The New Republic's Josh Patashnik offers a fascinating and insightful take on how the Obama campaign is failing the expectations game when it comes to Virginia. Unlike most DC-based commentators, he recognizes that the state isn't all within 15 minutes driving distance of Old Town Alexandria:
So why is Virginia, a genuine battleground, being lumped in so casually with the other Obama-friendly states? It could well be attributable to a phenomenon I blogged about earlier. DC-based pundits say to themselves, "Well, I live in Virginia, and all my friends are voting for Obama, so he must be the favorite." But that's a misleading picture--in 2004, only 28 percent of Democratic primary votes in the state were cast in the inner Washington suburbs (Arlington County, Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, and Fairfax County). There are still quite a few beer-track, culturally conservative white Democrats in other parts of the state. The primary can be seen, in part, as a contest between pundit Tom Schaller's Virginia (wherein Democrats win by strengthening the Obama coalition of blacks and upscale whites) and political consultant Dave "Mudcat" Saunders's Virginia (wherein they win by peeling off working-class rural whites--and by swearing. A lot.) Neither one of these camps is clearly stronger than the other, which is exactly why commentators should expect the Democratic primary to be close.