The thought makes me warm and tingly on the inside!

This is potentially the culmination of all of the hard work of VA's democratic organizers, many of them readers and posters on RK, that started with Warner in '01. The "Blue Wave" of Kaine, Webb, and a Dem Senate can and will continue this year!

he only lost by 2 points.  Had he come in and campaigned, not only would he have carried the state, he might have carried Mark Warner into the Senate as well.

You camnot win a state which you abandon to the opposition.  And Virginia is far more hospitable to Democrats now than it was even 12 years ago.

The VA of the 1970s and 1980s was heavily Republican. In 1988 Bush I prevailed there with 60% of the vote. After 1988 the state became much more competitive as NVA turned toward the Democrats. Bush's 7 and 8 points are much smaller than what his father and Ronald Reagan received there. Obama could win VA if he puts up Kaine/Webb-like numbers in NVA and Tidewater VA.  

The effervescent headiness of Obama's declaring himself the winner of the Democratic primary, Clinton's extraordinarily dynamic speech acknowledging his victory and following through with her vigorous promotion of Democratic victory in November--- will it last through five months' campaigning and carry the day in November, especially in swing states like Virginia? Or, will it fade like Big Brown at the final, crucial moment, and The Establishment then come plugging along to put their candidate over the finish line instead?

Emotional highs are never sustainable; all those newly registered Obama enthusiasts will have to get to the polls to vote come November, and they will have to be allowed to vote (do they have photo ID? are they on a purge list? are they at the right polling place? are the machines honest?), and their votes will actually have to be counted.

After savoring the historical moment this week, now comes the boring, grunt labor of hanging together and making it  work, that being the operative word. Can't relax now, nothing is a sure thing. Karl Rove is still on the loose, the Super Elite have their own agenda, and they have plenty of time to create their usual mischief. Let's be wary and determined, take nothing for granted.  

This is a good diary.  There is one aspect of registering African Americans to vote which must be addressed, and that's the problem of those who have felony convictions and have thus lost their right to vote.  Many, many things which would be misdemeanors in other states are felonies in Virginia, among them possession of the tiniest amount of virtually any drug but marijuana, and larceny of anything with a value of $200 or more.  Over the past two decades I've watched the number of things deemed felonies in this state expand, while there has been no effort to reduce offenses currently deemed felonies to misdemeanors.  This means that there are many people in this state who in any other jurisdiction would either not have been prosecuted or would have received misdemeanor convictions.  Accordingly, lots of young men and women in this state are walking around with felony convictions for nonviolent offenses, their numbers are disproportionately African American, and they can't vote.  

There is a provision in the Code of Virginia for restoration of voting rights under certain conditions.  If we really wish to expand the numbers of African American voters there should be some effort to educate many these former offenders of their right to restoration of their voting rights.  The last day to register to vote is October 6th, and the Secretary of the Commonwealth requires that the application for restoration of rights be filed by August 1st in order to receive the restoration in time to be registered by October 6th.  

how can we get such a program up and running in time? Catzmaw, you seem to understand this problem; should the Obama case workers get on the problem, or would working through the local Democratic Committees be better (somehow, given the calcification of some Committees, I suspect the job will be better done by the Obama campaign).

The "felon list" was used very effectively in Florida to scrub voter lists; anyone whose name remotely resembled a felon was also denied the vote, so that's a problem, too.

It seems that several different avenues should be used to get the word out, but the one most likely to reach ex-cons who might be interested in restoring their rights would likely be the community outreach and church programs.  I would propose that Obama campaigners - perhaps law school students or attorneys - give talks at local churches and community centers which have some sort of outreach to the ex-offender community.  This would be true for rural AND inner city communities.  There are a lot of rural people dealing with convictions for possession of things like methamphetamine and oxycontin.   You are right about the calcified local Democratic parties.  Some are better than others, but this is an issue that has to be addressed some time in the next few weeks if it's to have any benefit for the target audience.

Maybe the Obama campaign can arrange for meetings at the venues where ex-offenders sometimes go for training and services and advertise them through local radio and TV spots and fliers passed out at churches, temples, and synagogues.  Other volunteers might be able to pass out fliers at places like restaurants, hair salons, and job centers.  An aggressive e-mail campaign wouldn't hurt, either.  

Perhaps a simple to understand brochure can be developed which explains the law, complete with links to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's website and perhaps the forms themselves.  I don't know, what do you think?    

Northern Virginia represents a significant region with the Commonwealth in that candidate for either the WH or Senate will carry victory without winning here.
Arlington represents a significant liberal base with which Obama can start to grow the neccessary majority. Arlington in 2006 had some 130K eligible voters with roughly 74K voting. In 2008 in the Democrat Primary Obama earned 27K votes and Clinton 16K while only a little less than 9K votes were cast total in the Republican Primary. In 2006 56.41% made it to the polls.
If you look at Loudoun where I was grew up the County has grown but in 2006 still with 152K eligible voters was dwarfed by its neighbor Fairfax with more than a half a million. Loudon still has less potential voters than say both Chesterfield County or Henrico County (usually very Republican stongholds) in the burbs of Richmond.
If Northern Virginia votes as a block, which is the intent of many activists on the ground, your looking at a ground swell. Congressman Tom Davis's seat will be going Democrat and Couch barely secured his seat at the State level and these just begin the completion of the circle that began with NVA bringing down George Allen in 2006.
Just under one million Virginians voted in the 2008 Democrat primary. Obama has the potential to secure the liberal suburban vote in NVA as well as win Richmond (100K eligible voters), Norfolk, Hampton, and Petersburg's sigificant African-American vote which would result in winning Virginia'a electoral college and turning Virginia "blue".
The battleground will be for the independents and moderate/fiscal conservatives of both Parties sitting right on the center. These voters voted for the likes of Webb, but also supported Bush or voted for Kaine but also supported Allen. Its quite a dynamic actually that many overlook. many Virginians admit voting for Democrats at the local level but opt to support Republicans at the federal level. Obama will seek to lesson that gap and simply not concede the national security/defense populus who vote at the federal level on that issue alone to John Mccain.
There are alot of independents in NVA though and those votes will be the ones that are fought hardest for by both camps. McCain will seek to hold those and send his ambassadors to swing through Roanoake, Lynchburg, Danville, all the way to Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Radford and right up Bristol areas to look up the Republican conservatives as well as reach out to those in the Suffolk/Chesepeake areas dominated with Robertson conservatives. he will have to do this at the same time he attempts to curtail massive gains in NVA by Obama.
If turnout reaches 70% in NVA, McCain will not be able to make that up in other parts of the State. The numbers simply are just not there. McCain only saving grace is that many Counties outside Richmond and out west as a % have higher voter turnout results historically. Chesterfield/Henrico top out around 58% while most NVA jusristictions are in the low 50's. Take Manassas at 46%, Manassas Park 37%, Prince William at 46% in 2006. There very well may be significant Hispanic voters in those areas "not" participating...that spells opportunity for someone.

utterly compromised and in urgent need of reform---- and it's not just the Republicans' doing, either, as some of the officials are Establishment Democrats. Time for massive grassroots effort, I'd say. As it happens, I believe similar problems exist in the other counties you mentioned. Time is short, and we need to get on it. Anyone know an Obama organizer? (see comments above on restoring felons' voting rights, too).

Chesterfield experienced massive turnout. I can attest to being one of the people who the Board of Elections would assume would ask for a Republican ballot but did not this time around. They ran out of Democrat ballots and had overflow on the Republican. Why? Because if you look at the historical data, organizers called it right, but they failed to see the ground swell Obama was stirring going into Super Tuesday and it was too late. No fraud, just poor manangement in my view.
As to organizers, there were about a dozen or so Clinton organizers who I worked with on the Webb campaign here where we increased Democrat turnout quite a bit in 2006, but sadly only two plan to come on board for Obama and organize.
Chesterfield is a conservative bedroom community so its not surprising there is quite a bit Republican influence. My street alone had two Huckabee organizers that have both already knocked on my door twice since McCain wrapped up the nomination. This time around my front porch is almost a battleground, many know or if they have paid attention to signs in the yard that this yard supported McCain in 2000 over Bush, Bush over Gore, no signs in 2004, Webb over Allen, Cantor over Nachman and Obama over Clinton. So far it looks as if the household here will be split this time around with both signs in the yard----that should get the neighbors talking.