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Presidential campaigns ramp up in Virginia
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By Anita Kumar, Published: July 7
RICHMOND — For months, Republicans stood on the sidelines as President Obama
gradually ramped up his reelection campaign in battleground Virginia.
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After a pair of recent visits by the
presumptive nominee Mitt Romney ,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/presidential-campaign…virginia/2012/07/07/gJQAWVtdUW_story.html?wprss=rss_virginia-politics
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Presidential campaigns ramp up in Virginia - The Washington Post
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7/10/12 11:49 AM
Republicans angling to win back the White
House have opened a dozen campaign
offices across the state.
11
“We are not finished investing in Virginia,’’
said Pete Snyder, chairman of the GOP’s
coordinated campaign in the
commonwealth to elect Republicans up and
down the ticket. “Our base is fired up.”
Graphic
Map shows where Democrats and Republicans are
setting up offices in Virginia and how each county voted
in the last presidential election.
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While Democrats have made a splashy
entrance in Virginia with fundraisers, wellattended rallies and plenty of headlines,
Republicans have been much more low-key.
The party has worked behind the scenes,
with almost no interest in touting its
strategy to deny Obama a repeat victory
here.
“We fully expect this to be hotly contested,
with the two teams battling it out, but we
have the enthusiasm on the ground,” said
Brian Moran, chairman of the Democratic
Party of Virginia. Obama is scheduled to
make a campaign swing through the state on
Friday and Saturday.
Neither presidential campaign would speak
publicly about its strategy in Virginia but
privately both pledged to outperform the
other in door-knocking, phone calls and
voter registration as they vie for 13 Electoral
College votes.
Both campaigns have paid staff in most
regions of the state. Obama’s campaign
already has 40 field organizers and nearly
20 offices. Meanwhile, the Romney camp
has more than 20 branches, raised
$200,000 in the state since the Supreme
Court upheld the Obama health-care law,
and registered voters and recruited
volunteers at nearly 30 events statewide on
July Fourth.
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Democrats expect to surpass their party’s
efforts in 2008, when they masterminded
what many consider to be the state’s most
comprehensive political organization in modern history. Republicans plan to triple their
contacts to potential voters from their all-time high in 2009 — 2.5 million calls and 500,000
knocks on doors — when Robert F. McDonnell handily won the governorship.
Recent polls show Obama with a slight lead in Virginia, although most surveys rely on data
that predate Romney’s clinching of the GOP nomination. A Washington Post poll in May
had Obama ahead of Romney, 51 percent to 44 percent, among registered state voters.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/presidential-campaign…virginia/2012/07/07/gJQAWVtdUW_story.html?wprss=rss_virginia-politics
Page 2 of 5
Presidential campaigns ramp up in Virginia - The Washington Post
7/10/12 11:49 AM
Political observers think that Obama could win the general election without carrying
Virginia but that the state is crucial for Romney.
Bob Holsworth, a commentator and former political science professor at Virginia
Commonwealth University, said state Republicans grumbled for weeks that Romney’s
campaign infrastructure lagged in Virginia. The office openings, he said, would help
alleviate those concerns.
In 2008, Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Virginia in 44
years. But since then, Democrats have lost ground to Republicans, who won statewide
elections in 2009, a commanding majority of Virginia’s congressional delegation in 2010
and the state Senate in 2011.
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plainsman1 wrote:
7/8/2012 2:47 PM EDT
I am a Virginia Democrat but Brian Moran is not my leader, and I have no interest in hearing a word from him
nor giving a dime to the party until he (and Jim Moran) are gone. Let them bleed their banker friends for cash.
Meanwhile, our president gives us secret trade negotiations -- you can't even read the proposals! -- on behalf of
Hollywood. It is an easy choice, but a sad choice, and hardly motivating to get to the polls.
Mooker40 wrote:
7/8/2012 2:39 PM EDT
The upcoming November presidential election will be the strangest ever held. The partisanship. animosity,
malevolence, and ill-will between Republicans and Democreats are at an all time high. Each party will vote for
their respective candidates come hell or high water. I believe Obama is greatly to be blamed for this ever
deepening partisanship. He has from day one tried to divide this nation from the haves and the haves not. He
has sought to promote class warfare and class envy, approved of the anarchist "occupiers" and when Obama
speaks it's always "them" and "us". He is forgetting, however, that this country is basically center/right politically
not center/left as Obama believes it is. Obama will lose in November. He has become too radioactive for this
country.
jeffersonian1 wrote:
7/8/2012 12:20 PM EDT
O.K, this is trivial; but what is up with McDonnell's hair in the photo?
He looks like he's going for the full Bieber.
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Presidential campaigns ramp up in Virginia - The Washington Post
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Presidential campaigns ramp up in Virginia - The Washington Post
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