The Converts

The state of Virginia has voted Republican for 44 years. Travels in a state changing sides.

When election researcher and political scientist Larry Sabato looks at his colorful chart, he can scarcely believe what he sees: the southern state that hasn’t gone for a Democratic candidate in 44 years is on the verge of tipping. Just two months ago, almost the whole state glowed a rosy red for Republican. Now the map is changing to Democratic blue, especially in the heavily populated areas, dark blue in the northern exurbs of Washington, D.C., cautiously lighter in the southeastern region around Hampton Roads, the home to the largest naval base in the world.

In Virginia, Where Sabato teaches, George Bush won four years ago with a nine point majority; today Barack Obama is ahead. Will a state that resisted integrated schools as late as the 1970’s actually elect a black man as President?

“If Hampton Roads goes for Obama, then the whole state will, too,” Sabato said. “And if Virginia dares to do that, the majority of the United States will follow,”

“The road to the White House leads straight through Hampton Roads,” Sarah Palin recently said. But now she and John McCain fly in several times a week, trying to salvage what they can.

What happened? What changed the landscape so drastically?

Attorney David Flynn and real estate agent Bill Gibbs both live in Hampton Roads. They’re white, have made good money in the real estate market, and are now suffering under Wall Street’s worst-case scenario. As long as they don’t discuss politics, the lanky Flynn and the rotund Gibbs are best buddies. They both see themselves as typical Virginians.

David is a so-called newcomer. He’s originally from Massachusetts. Like many other Americans, he moved here because of the sun, the sea, and the economic boom brought on by the proximity to Washington, high-tech industries, and more than a dozen nearby military installations. Population in the area has increased by more than 9 percent since the year 2000, but the current real estate crisis has caused David to lay off 10 of his 16 employees and has reduced his $250,000 annual income by two-thirds. Flynn, a political middle-of-the-roader and swing voter, has decided to vote for Obama because he says he thinks Obama will be better for the economy.

“In an emergency, government has a duty to rescue the market,” he said.

Real Estate agent Bill Gibbs, on the other hand, is a native Virginian, descendant of Captain John Smith the legendary sea captain and womanizer who founded Virginia’s first settlement in 1607 and reputedly had an affair with Pocahontas, daughter of the reigning native chieftain.

Bill’s business is in slightly better shape than David’s, and his friend teases him saying, “That’s only because your customers are all reliable military officers.” Bill has also already made up his mind: he’ll be voting for John McCain because, like his father, he always votes Republican. He enjoys it when McCain and Palin condemn government plans to redistribute the wealth as “socialism.”

Bill doesn’t say anything when his buddy says Bush made a mess of everything.

Over a glass of beer, 49-year old Bill Gibbs admits it wouldn’t take much to convert him to a swing voter. His mother has already made the big change from family tradition and now votes regularly for Democratic candidates. When David gripes that George W. Bush screwed everything up, that the Iraq war was a huge mistake, and that America is going to the dogs, Bill nods silently. At a recent McCain rally, he asked himself for the first time, “Who has changed the most, the Republicans or me?” Over ten thousand spectators showed up for the rally, but only four or five were black. “Whites as far as the eye could see,” said Bill. He didn’t like that. “That’s not the real America,” he said. But in spite of that, he’ll remain faithful on Tuesday and vote Republican. Just for spite, he’s wearing a bright red T-shirt as he and David go barhopping.

The old southern bastion is teetering. According to the latest polls, Democrats also lead in North Carolina, Florida and are only slightly behind in Georgia. A mixed-up world: the South used to vote exclusively Democrat because they were the slave owners. When that changed, they were for segregation. Republican opponents opposed to slavery didn’t stand a chance there. Eventually, under the influence of large northern cities, Democrats became more and more leftist-oriented and Republicans more and more right wing. In the 1960’s, Richard Nixon succeeded in taking the South away from the Democrats. Now, signs of another change are showing, above all in Virginia. Moderate Democrats were elected Governor of the state twice running, and two moderate Democrats will represent the state in the U.S. Senate after November 4.

Hardly anyone has been able to watch the changing times more closely than Paul Fraim, Mayor of Norfolk. The city has a quarter of a million residents and a 400-year history, lies in Hampton Roads, and has been run by Fraim for 14 years. From his tenth floor, glass-walled office, the white attorney has a commanding view of his domain. Far below, gray warships bob up and down on the tide in the world’s largest naval base, while tugboats shepherd fully laden container ships to their mooring places.

“It wasn’t hard for a Democrat to become Mayor of Norfolk,” says Fraim. Every second resident is black, the city is home to three universities, and there’s the harbor with its many workers. But the fact that the Hampton Roads area is also home to a hundred thousand military personnel and veterans, along with the dyed-in-the-wool southerners and conservative evangelicals, makes it just light blue. Fraim didn’t think he could be elected mayor. He still recalls the furor John McCain caused during the 2000 campaign when he called two reactionary religious leaders with their own universities in Virginia “agents of intolerance.” From that point on, he didn’t stand the ghost of a chance.

Since the 1990’s, Fraim has seen enormous changes. First, the blacks awakened from their lethargy to discover that they had real power. Then large numbers of whites like attorney David Lynn immigrated from the more liberal North. They were followed by people from Latin America and Asia. Finally, the women rebelled. The women, says opinion researcher Sabato, had a more sophisticated feel for the necessity of social and cultural change than did their rough southern husbands.

Recently, Michelle Obama was in Norfolk and spoke to military wives about their everyday worries when their husbands were deployed to combat zones and money got tight at home. She promised help and reaped gigantic applause. Her talks with military wives have since become a trademark of the Obama campaign. That, says Sabato, is another reason Obama has been able to close the gap with war hero John McCain in Hampton Roads area polls. “Veterans and active military tend to vote Republican,” says Sabato, “but thanks to their wives, no longer as a unified bloc.”

In a Virginia Beach bar, swing voter David Flynn and near-swing voter Bill Gibbs are convulsed with laughter when they hear a story about a Republican election volunteer who didn’t even have time to catch his breath at someone’s door before someone from the kitchen called out, “Tell the guy we’re voting for the nigger this time!” The southern state of Virginia has already written a great deal of history. It was home to the first settlement in the New World and gave America its first President, George Washington. Nine years ago, it elected America’s first black Governor.

Next Tuesday, it may well cast the deciding votes for America’s first black President.