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Obama’s hopes in Virginia evident in Republican-leaning ’burb

Dante Chinni

Posted: 10.09.2008 / 8:03 AM PDT

Manassas, Va. – If you peruse the current electoral-vote projection maps on the Web, you’ll find that most of them have put usually Republican Virginia in a neutral color – up for grabs in the presidential race with less than four weeks to go.

The direction this state winds up swinging, for Sens. Barack Obama or John McCain, will probably depend on what happens in the cluster of wealthy suburban counties that dominate the northeastern corner of the state. These places fall into the politically split community type that Patchwork Nation calls the “Monied ’Burbs.”

Sitting right between counties that voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004, and others that went heavily for President Bush, is Prince William County, which surrounds the city of Manassas. Prince William, itself a “Monied ’Burb,” went for President Bush by 6 percentage points in 2004. But two years later, it narrowly voted for Democratic candidate Jim Webb for the US Senate.

The direction the county goes in 2008 will almost certainly play a large role in determining who wins the Old Dominion.

“I don’t like to talk politics here, I don’t want to offend anyone, but the customers often do,” says Bob Chase, sales manager of Prospero’s Books. “It’s hard to gauge around here, but I’ve been seeing some trends for some time…. I would say there’s a greater chance than any time in recent history that this county could flip [go for Senator Obama].”

A combination of changing demographics and the poor economy has put the county in play, Mr. Chase says.

Prince William holds a peculiar mix of attitudes and traits. You’ll find “custom gunsmithing” just off Main Street in Manassas and the barbershop that advertises “military cuts” and “flattops.” But look around, and you’ll see a host of art galleries and Thai restaurants.

Over the past eight years, the county has seen a host of “refugees” from the overpriced Washington housing market, looking for a little more space for a little less money. This is a fairly well-to-do area with a median household income of more than $68,000.

But it has seen hard times recently. Prince William leads Virginia counties in foreclosures, with more than 1 percent of the homes in the county in some state of foreclosure in August.

“The area is having something of a hard time lately,” says Keith Walker, Prince William editor for the Manassas Journal Messenger, the local daily newspaper. The city of Manassas, he notes, just announced it had to scale back a plan it had created to help city employees buy foreclosed properties because of “unprecedented economic events and revenue shortfalls.”

It’s very hard to know which way the county will fall in the presidential race, Mr. Walker says, because it has long been heavily Republican and most people tend to “toe the party line when they are talking about politics.”

Beth Sharpe, a manager at the local Java-Roo coffee shop, says she “expects the area to go Republican because that’s the history.” But at the previous weekend’s fall festival, she notes, the split between Obama and McCain buttons was fairly even.

In a drive through the side streets of Manassas, the signs for Senator McCain easily outnumbered those for Obama by 4 or 5 to 1. However, the city of Manassas tends to be more Republican than the surrounding county. Its mayor and City Council are all Republican, and it is full of more longtime residents than newcomers.

Yet even among strong conservatives, questions are arising this year, says Linda Spittle, an artist at the ArtBeat Gallery co-op. “I’m a Republican. I’ve voted for Republicans my whole life, and I’m not going to change,” she says. “But I do see a trend among my friends. I’m hearing speculative comments about Obama from my friends, people who usually vote Republican. They like his policies.”

Spittle says she likes McCain and believes he would make a great president, but “he’s not as charismatic a candidate as we’ve had in the past.”

Is it enough to throw the “Monied ’Burb” of Prince William County into Obama’s column? Spittle hopes not, but like everyone else, she doesn’t know.

The “Monied ’Burbs” are a curious community type. They hold a lot of people, and while politically, they are split almost down the middle on the whole, individually some lean left and some lean right, like Prince William.

If the right-leaning “Monied ’Burbs” start falling the other way, it could signal a big swing on Election Day. But there are three-plus weeks to go in the race. That’s an eternity in politics.