Kaine Claims Victory in Virginia

Democratic Party Wins at Least Four Key State Senate Races
By Michael D. Shear

Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) claimed victory tonight in Tuesday's elections, saying his party had seized control of the state Senate and made historic gains in the House of Delegates.

In a speech to Democratic Party activists gathered at a hotel in Tysons Corner, Kaine hailed the political changes that have swept through Virginia, beginning with the election of Gov. Mark R. Warner in 2001, his own election four years later and last year's victory by U.S. Sen. James Webb.

Kaine's comments came as the votes were still being counted across the commonwealth. But what was clear to the governor was already emerging in the tallies: Democrats in Virginia made big gains in the legislature and in key local races Tuesday night as the commonwealth's voters continued to dramatically shift their preferences away from the Republican elected leadership they installed during the 1990s.

The party won at least four key state Senate races -- including a bitter and costly battle between Democrat J.C. "Chap" Petersen and Republican incumbent Jeannemarie Devolites Davis -- giving them a 21-19 edge in the chamber, which has been under Republican control since 1997.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/06/AR2007110601036.html?hpid=topnews

Kaine declares Dems victory(video)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2007/11/06/VI2007110602701.html?hpid=topnews

This was a very nasty, expensive election for state Senate races. Hard fought. It featured something I've never seen in decades of Virginia politics, which was a Dem TV ad so sharp it was hard to watch.

It was about how some pug voted 95% of the time with southern Virginian reps. (read: southern republican rural types) The ad ended with, "he doesn't represent us, he represents them." It was raw sectional hostility between civilized Northern Virginia and the rest of the state. "Them."

I'm used to that us vs. them, but always coming from the other direction. Pugs in Richmond talk about Northern Virginia like it was Sodom. One of them used to call Alexandria, Virgina, "The Peoples Republic of Alexandria." So there's a real sense of tables turning, with Northern Virginia having grown to the point it has the upper hand, demographically.

So in Virginia, it's on

Their reckoning is here.

Kick their asses back to the Stone Age. :toast:

This is a great victory in which ALL wings of the party deserve credit!

I've been living overseas for years, so I'm not well versed in state elections at the local level outside of my own state (Ill) and a couple of the border states (IN, IA).
But, I've heard of ms. davis. So she's obviously done something really obnoxious, evil, stupid or all of them together.

"Saslaw said the results proved that efforts by Republicans to focus voter attention on illegal immigration did not work. "I did not think that immigration in and of itself would carry the day," Saslaw said. "The results are proving that while immigration is a concern to people -- and it should be -- it is not returning the votes that they thought that it would." "