Two new polls today show Obama up by at least 10% in Virginia - Survey USA and Suffolk. We've been watching VA for a while now. But these polls again emphasize the overall trend in this election cycle. States that were barely touchable in the past 2 elections are turning blue or at least purple this time around. Some of the previous polls on VA showed things close. Many of the websites that poll the polls put VA in the 'toss up' category, etc. But it's moving if not already moved into pretty safe territory, more similar to how Obama's doing in Wisconsin or Michigan than how he's doing in say, Nevada.
This is an amazing thing given how divided things seemed 4 or 8 years ago.
And, arguably these two new polls reflect any post Palin-Biden debate change in tone or attitude of the electorate. Nothing there - no change (hear that Bill Kristol - no change no matter how much she winks at you). These polls, if anything, reflect there haven't been any game-changers. McCain's "suspend my campaign" stunt did nothing except make hims seem opportunistic and erratic. The debate, while Palin did okay for Palin, did not win over new voters - it only rallied ultra-conservative-activist votes that they already had.
VA has been a conservative state, until recently. The Democrats have made progress there, but it's still very conservative. What this tells me is that even though many Virginians are basically conservative, they're not knee-jerk conservatives. They're willing to look at a candidate's positions, character, and yes, charisma and determine whether they'd be effective, competant leaders.
They're looking for whether a candidate is corrupt or corruptable. Obama's winning there, like Warner and Kaine...
They're looking past the Cheney/Rovian us vs. them rhetoric.
They're sick and tired of Bush's failures.
They see leadership and alternatives in Obama and in Biden.
It's that simple.