The New Old Dominion

Virginia's voters make history.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008; A25

THE FOREIGN journalists who swarmed over Virginia in recent weeks, drawn by the spectacle of the onetime seat of the Confederacy playing a critical role in electing the first black U.S. president, are likely to report with amazement today that Virginians voted for a Democratic president for the first time in 44 years and elected a new Democratic senator to join a Democratic governor and Democratic Sen. James Webb.

Yesterday's vote in the Old Dominion was both historic and symbolic, but the outcome shouldn't surprise longtime residents. In the 1980s and '90s, the Republican Party, led by centrists such as Rep. Tom Davis and Sen. John W. Warner, attracted suburban swing voters. But in recent years, as the state GOP has trended right, moderate Democrats such as Sen.-elect Mark R. Warner and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine have stepped into the centrist void, making inroads with the one-third of Virginia voters who call themselves independent.

Sen. Barack Obama ran a deft campaign in Virginia, convincing voters that he could assume that centrist mantle. But his historic victory and Mark Warner's landslide election to the Senate are as much an affirmation of the pragmatic leadership of Mr. Warner and Mr. Kaine as they are a repudiation of the increasingly divisive and extreme leadership of the state GOP.

For the first time since the early 1970s, Democrats hold both of Virginia's U.S. Senate seats. They also control the governor's mansion and, after Gerald E. Connolly's victory in the 11th District, two of the three House seats for Northern Virginia. Republicans must decide what direction the state party will take. They can continue their recent practice of slicing the state in two: catering to conservatives in rural areas by taking hard-line stances on social issues and taxes and ignoring Northern Virginia and other urban and suburban areas. Or they can return to the pragmatic leadership of Mr. Davis and John Warner and appeal to a broader swath of voters. It's ultimately a decision for party members, but it seems to us that it's better for residents when two parties compete for voters in the middle rather than catering exclusively to factions on the left or right. Northern Virginia's population continues to grow, and newcomers to the region have proved more likely to vote Democratic. If the state GOP cedes Northern Virginia to the Democrats, it risks becoming a permanent minority party.

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