CNN’s Peter Hamby has discovered Virginia. Or more specifically, Henrico county [1] in central Virginia. In his eyes, as well as that of not a few pols, including the presidential candidates, the old Shire has emerged as the bellwether locale inside the battleground state:
Strategists for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney don’t see eye to eye on much, but they do agree on this: It’s tough to envision a path to the White House that doesn’t include Virginia.
And as they look for ways to tip the balance in November, an unlikely bellwether is emerging in the heart of Virginia: Henrico County, a longtime conservative bastion that has mutated into a key barometer for political watchers in the commonwealth.
Which is news to those of us who live here. Henrico has long been derided as the only county in the state without a seat…with the default being the Short Pump Mall. It’s the home of Eric Cantor, Jim Gilmore (who has a home across the tree line from stately Leahy manor). Gov. Bob McDonnell has a nice spread out in the far west end. Jerry Kilgore has digs around here somewhere, too. But it’s not all that Republican foliage that catches Hamby’s eye. It’s the high school names:
Public schools bear the names of Harry F. Byrd, the towering founder of the Byrd Organization who ruled the state’s politics for decades, and Mills E. Godwin, who helped Byrd implement the infamous program of “massive resistance” to school desegregation.
One high school, Douglas Southall Freeman, is named for Robert E. Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. Its mascot is the “Rebel,” though students long ago stopped waving the Confederate battle flag at football games as the school band played “Dixie.”
Over the past 20 years, demographic shifts, steady growth and a burgeoning African-American population on the county’s eastern side have transformed the county politically.
It was the Mills Godwin mention that got me.
A Democrat in his first gubernatorial term. A Republican in his second. Topsy-turvy, just like Henrico.