12 Days to Go

Ryan Nobles - bio | email

12 days to go and the race only seems to heating up. While it seemed that Barack Obama seemed poised to runaway with the election, a new set of polls shows the race tightening up. That trend is not only apparent nationally, but here in Virginia as well. While Obama, certainly has the edge, John McCain has not given up quite yet. 

Evidence of McCain’s final push here in Virginia is a series of campaign events across the commonwealth over the next couple of days. The highest profile event features the GOP VP nominee, Sarah Palin who will headline three different rallies in Virginia on Monday. She will be in Leesburg (where Barack Obama was yesterday) Fredericksburg and  Roanoke. 

But McCain isn’t just sending out his running mate to Virginia, he also is bringing perhaps, his highest profile surrogate, Rudy Giuliani to Richmond. Giuliani will join another former presidential candidate, Steve Forbes at a local businesses Dominion Insulation. Their goal is show why McCain’s plans for business is better for American people.

This event is part of their latest effort that began right after the last presidential debate where they are using Obama’s chance encounter with the now famous “Joe the Plumber”. McCain has now produced an ad featuring people connecting themselves to Joe the Plumber and has hosted a series of events showing local people who consider themselves versions of Joe the Plumber. In fact, in response to Obama’s event in Richmond yesterday, a group of such people held a press conference with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling. 

While the Republicans are doing their best to stay competitive, Sen. Obama continues to use vast resources to continue to push. Obama will be off the campaign trial for a few days to visit his grandmother in Hawaii, but his running mate will continue to campaign. Joe Biden will be in Danville and Martinsville on Friday.

In addition, the Obama campaign will reach out specifically to Jewish voters in Richmond, by bringing in the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk to the Weinstein JCC tonight at 7:30pm.