Decision Virginia

No they won’t be performing together, but the unlikely duo of Jay-Z and Caroline Kennedy are both making separate visits coming to Richmond on behalf of Barack Obama.

Jay-Z, the hip-hop star and urban entrepreneur will headline a “Last Chance for Change” rally Saturday at Virginia Union University. He will be joined by Russell Simmons and record executive Kevin Liles. The event is not a concert, but a rally in support of Senator Obama. In addition the campaign is trying to drum of support for their get out the vote efforts by offering random students who sign up to volunteer the chance to meet Jay-Z backstage.

JFK’s daughter Caroline, who was an early supporter of Obama, will headline four different events across Virginia, including one here in Richmond. Many political pundits believe that one of the major turning points in the democratic primary was the Kennedy family’s decision to get behind Obama over Hillary Clinton.

Details for both Richmond events is after the jump:

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Ryan Nobles - bio | email

Happy Halloween! (btw take your political signs down from your front yard tonight, unless you really want them vandalized or stolen.) 

A new poll shows that undecideds (big surprise) are still “undecided”. It leaves open the chance that a surprise is still possible come election day.

Barack Obama played to another big crowd in Virginia Beach yesterday. Today, the Democrats bring Bill Richardson to Richmond today at 1pm and promise more big stars in the days left before the election.

96 year old Roberta McCain, the mother of the Republican candidate charms a group of supporters in Henrico last night and is expected to this morning in Hanover.   

In case you missed it:

Here is my uncut interview with Sen. John McCain from Monday and here is Laura Geller’s lengthy uncut interview with Governor Tim Kaine from Wednesday. 

Gwyenth Paltrow’s visit to Richmond has been cancelled. The Obama campaign said today that an illness has prevented her from making the trip to Central Virginia to rally supporters for Barack Obama.

I am also told that a collective “oh no” went up from the male contingent of the Obama campaign office when the news came out.

The same reaction was felt here in our newsroom.

Supporters will now have to settle for a visit from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson who will be in town tomorrow. He has not won or even been nominated for an Oscar, but he was the chairman of the Democratic Governor’s Association.

Ryan Nobles - bio | email

We are now down to 6 days left in the race for the White House and the Virginia battleground is well established. Here is a look at some big time visitors heading to town over the next few days. 

The visits are from politicians, governors, mothers and an academy award winning actress.

THURSDAY-

Democrats:  
2:45pm- Google CEO Eric Schmidt will speak on the economy at VCU

4:30pm- Delegate Brian Moran (and candidate for Governor) will appear on MSNBC

The candidate himself, Barack Obama will headline a rally in Norfolk at 5:45 tonight. 

Republicans:
2:00pm- Senator John Warner and Attorney General Bob McDonnell hold Veteran’s Victory Rally at Parham Road Headquarters 

7:45pm- Sen. McCain’s mother Mrs. Roberta McCain will meet with volunteers at an appreciation rally at Parham Road Headquarters. 

FRIDAY-

Republicans:
11am- Roberta McCain headlines volunteer appreciation rally at Hanover Headquarters on Chamberlayne Road.

Democrats:
11am- Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow (yes that Gwyneth Paltrow) headlines a get out the vote rally at Marshall Street Headquarters.

1pm- Gov. Bill Richardson headlines at get out the vote rally at Marshall Street Obama Headquarters.

The McCain/Palin campaign also released the final details for Saturday’s event featuring Gov. Sarah Palin at Deep Run High School. The Palin event will begin at 8pm. Doors to the event open at 6. Tickets are available at all campaign offices or at www.virginia.johnmccain.com. 

Check back all day long for updates. Who knows who could be in Richmond next!

Today, Governor Tim Kaine offered himself up to TV crews at the Governor’s Mansion for a series of one on one interviews about the election. NBC12 was one of the stations who took advantage of the opportunity. Our Laura Geller conducted the interview and will have more on what he had to say tonight at 11.

The Governor’s junket; however, was not without some excitement. We are told that a TV crew (not ours) was in the process of using their time to talk to the Governor, when their photographer inadvertently backed into a vase on display in the room. The vase fell and broke, to which Governor Kaine reportedly remarked. “I hope that wasn’t expensive.”

It turns out it was- to the tune of $17,500. The vase was a gift from the French Government to Thomas Jefferson.

No word on if the vase was insured, or who will be on the hook for its replacement. (Although I am not sure a relic of that type is really replaceable).

Ryan Nobles - bio | email

7 Days to go and Virginia will have more high profile visitors coming to the state as the hours left to convince voters continue to slip away.

Barack Obama will make his tenth trip to the commonwealth by holding a rally in Virginia Beach on Thursday. The event will be held at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater at 5:45pm.

Obama is also sending some high profile surrogates to town again. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google will be in Charlottesville and Richmond on Thursday. He will discuss Obama’s plan for the economy. In case your wondering Schmidt is reportedly worth a cool $6.6 billion.

Meanwhile John McCain and Sarah Palin return to Virginia on Saturday. McCain will hold a rally in Fairfax Saturday afternoon at 11am. Palin will appear in Richmond that evening. The details of that event has not been released.

**UPDATE**

Some details from the Palin event have been released:

Deep Run High School
4801 Twin Hickory Rd
Glen Allen, VA 23059
Event will be in evening
Exact time TBD

**UPDATE ENDS**

McCain is sending a unique surrogate of his own to Virginia. His mother, Roberta McCain is making 10 stops throughout Virginia over the next three days. She will stop here in Richmond on Thursday at 7:45pm. In case your wondering Mrs. McCain is 96 years old.

The details for the McCain and Obama events are after the jump. I will post the Palin event details when I get them.

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Two governors, both former presidential candidates, are coming to Virginia in the week ahead in support of their respective candidates for president. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and current New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson both have big followings with key constituencies that both campaigns are trying to reach out to.

Richardson is an Hispanic-American with extensive foreign policy experience. A one-time Clinton confidante, (he was President Clinton’s Secretary of Energy) he broke ranks and endorsed Obama after he dropped out of the race for president. He was also considered to be among Obama’s choices for a running mate. He will tour traditionally Democratic strongholds in Virginia (NOVA, Charlottesville and Richmond) with the goal of rallying supporters to get out the vote.

Huckabee is the darling of many evangelicals on the conservative right. He spent the waning days of the primary as a thorn in John McCain’s side, exposing many of the current GOP’s nominee’s problems with that key constituency. (A problem that McCain improved upon with the selection of the conservative Sarah Palin).  Huckabee will tour the social conservative southwest, with a former president of the NRA. This is an area where Huckabee beat McCain pretty badly in during the primary. It’s an area, whose returns came in first and made it initially seem like Huckabee might have a chance of winning. (McCain went on to win by about 8 points.) 

Details for both visits are after the jump. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Nobles - bio | email

As you might imagine it is a busy day on the campaign trail as we are now only one week away from voters heading to the polls to cast their ballots. 

Barack Obama spends the majority of his day in the Commonwealth, with the headwind of a new group of polls signaling his position in Virginia improving. Obama will be at James Madison University this afternoon before heading to a nighttime rally at Norfolk’s waterfront ballpark tonight. 

The democratic presidential nominee is also asking his supporters to take election day off from work, to help get people to the polls. He also got his buddy Gov. Tim Kaine, to record a radio spot in support of him. 

While Obama jets around other parts of the state, he brings a big name here to Richmond. Sheryl Crow will drop by his campaign office on Marshall Street to urge his supporters to get out on the street in support the candidate. She will appear at 2pm this afternoon, although don’t expect a performance. According to the release Crow is “expected to lay out the choice in this election: John McCain and four more years of the same failed policies of the last eight versus Obama and tax relief for the middle class, access to quality, affordable healthcare for all Virginians and a plan to bring a responsible end to the Iraq War.” It doesn’t say anything about her guitar. 
***UPDATE***
Crow performed with The Beastie Boys at Monroe Park for Free.

Meanwhile Republicans are still basking in the glow of a decent public relations day for them. Governor Sarah Palin played to big crowds in three different parts of the state and got quite a bit of coverage after an unplanned stop at an Ashland eatery. I was there and was among the many who stood in the rain. The main difference between the supporters and me, is that most of them had appropriate rain protection. My crack photographer Jamie Rife got inside, here was my view of the event.:

In the race for U.S. Senate, Mark Warner continues to show wide leads in every poll taken. Today his campaign sent out an email to supporters with a list of all of their newspaper endorsements. They even pointed out their non-endorsement by the Times-Dispatch, calling the paper’s nod to Jim Gilmore was “lukewarm.”

There is a lot of stuff happening, as you might imagine, so check back often!

For the second time since he was named the Republican nominee for president, NBC12 was granted a one on one interview with Sen. John McCain. I conducted the interview via satellite this morning. Sen. McCain was in Cleveland, OH and had just finished an address on the economy.

We spoke to Senator McCain about a number of issues specific to Virginia. I will have a portion of the interview available during out 5:30pm news and an extended look tonight at 11. In addition the entire interview will be posted on decisionvirginia.com later today.

Here are some quotes from our discussion:

On polls showing him behind in Virginia: “I’m concerned about every state in America. We are doing fine in Virginia, we are campaigning hard and getting out our vote, I am confident we will win the state of Virginia. We have other polls that show us ahead.”

On whether he regrets not taking public financing: “I will always tell the American people the truth. Senator Obama did not tell the American people the truth when he signed a piece of paper, that committed when he was a long shot, to taking public financing if I was. He didn’t tell the American people the truth when in two debates with Senator Clinton she, he looked into the camera and said ‘I’ll sit down and negotiate with John McCain before I forego public financing. So he didn’t tell the American people the truth. I am in the business of telling people the truth.”

On claims by Virginia Democrats that his campaign here is negative and dirty, specifically robo-calls: “The fact is that Senator Obama should come clean on his relationship with unrepentant terrorist and his wife who is an unrepentant terrorist. William Ayer’s wife. He said it was just a guy in the neighborhood, we know it’s a lot more than that, including sitting on a board with Mr. Ayers that gave 230 thousand dollars to ACORN. There is a lot more that needs to be, as Senator Clinton said in her debates, We need to know the full extent of the relationship and that’s what the robo-call says and it is factual and true.”

Senator McCain also talked about the claims by his campaign that the Kaine administration is “speeding up” the registration of ex-felons and the Obama tax plan. And yes, he did find a way to work in Joe the Plumber.

Check back for more on our interview and tune in tonight at 5:30pm.

**UPDATE**

Here is the video of the story that aired last night at 11. 

Dave Matthews and his band-mate Tim Reynolds came to Richmond today to perform a free concert on behalf of Barack Obama’s campaign. Our reporter Andy Jenks was given the (..ahem) “difficult” assignment of covering the concert for NBC12 and provides this dispatch for Decision Virginia:

What’s in that mug Dave Matthews drinks while onstage? Tea, we’re told. Earlier in the day, it was coffee. These are the things you learn while listening to the all-acoustic Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds show held Sunday night at the Siegel Center. 6,353 people were treated to a free concert entitled, “Last Chance for Change” in support of Sen. Barack Obama.

We already know that Tim is as tall standing up as Dave is sitting down. We know Tim never speaks. We also know many of the acoustic tunes chosen for the night are from Dave’s solo Some Devil album. And we know that Dave loves to make, um, chatter in between songs during these more intimate affairs. So how does he feel about Obama, taxes, leather chairs and a host of other topics?  Thanks for asking. That’s why I’m here.

On free tickets: “Thanks for spending your hard earned nothing-at-all to be here!”

On instruments: “I like to switch guitars because it makes me look professional. Tim doesn’t need to switch guitars because he already looks professional.”

On Obama: “It is my opinion, that if Obama is elected president, you will hear cheers from countries around the world without a microphone.

On the Obama tax plan: “I look very much forward to having my [rear end] taxed off. I’m well compensated for doing what I do. Tax me heavy so somebody can have a little break.”

On his chair: “This chair is too soft. This is the complaint of someone who is too fortunate. [I] should be taxed more. [I] must pay for the police and fire departments!”

On the audience: “Hope everybody’s having a good time. And if you’re not, just quietly sneak out the door because I’m paranoid enough as it is.”

On voting: “Tell your friends, if you’re undecided…just be cool!”

The show lasted about two hours and 45 minutes. See the official setlist here.

-Pictures and post by Andy Jenks (ajenks@nbc12.com)