If you want to know why Obama appears to be ahead in this once-solidly Republican state, this reader will clue you in:

They are killing me. I am a registered Republican. I live in Virginia. But I am clearly not a "Virginia Republican". This ticket and loathesome campaign is a disaster - I haven't left the Republican Party so much as it has left me, at least here in the Commonwealth. The party gladly allowed Rove/GWB to cultivate a certain brand of politics to win and hold the White House. And now that the bill has come due, so few wish to face the music. And in the process - and his quest for office - John McCain has embraced that which he professed to repudiate.

Ignorant Christian Fascism is not a recipe for success, it's Saudi Arabia under a different prophet. Count me out. Despite differing with the Democratic platform on a great number of policies, I will gladly vote for the Obama ticket because at a minimum it promises adults at the helm, a rational approach to policymaking, the return of science over theocracy, the restoration of the primacy of the rule of law, and the creative destruction of that assemblage once known as the GOP.