My grandmother is 77 years old. She was born and raised in Franklin County, VA, just a few miles from Virgil Goode's hometown, and except for a few years in the 1950's when my grandfather was in the Navy, has lived in southwestern Virginia her entire life. While she lives in Roanoke now, she's only in the city because it grew up around her; her house was in open fields when she moved there 50 years ago.
Although she's never been very active politically, she has always voted for democrats. She considers FDR one of the greatest people of all time and admires JFK. She supported the civil rights movement, and didn't abandon the Democratic Party after the Civil Rights Act passed. Even so, in many ways she's almost the perfect stereotype of a rural white southerner of her age. There are parts of Roanoke she won't drive through, which she still refers to as "the black sections"; to her, that's synonymous with "high crime". She supported Hillary in the primaries, but after Obama won the nomination I was still mildly surprised (and proud) when she told me "I never thought it would happen, but I guess I'll be voting for a black man."
On Friday, I called to see if she felt up to going to hear Joe Biden speak (before he cancelled), and to tell her about Ralph Stanley's radio add (she's not online, and doesn't listen to the radio). She was very impressed with that (a lot of people pay attention to Ralph Stanley around here).
She mentioned seeing and liking Tom Perriello's NASCAR ad. She said she wished she still lived in the 5th district, because she wanted to vote for Tom (I think what she actually said was "That ole' Virgil's a racist hillbilly, and he needs to go.")
Then she told me that she had been sending a little money to the Obama campaign. I said "Grandma, you can't afford that! You can barely buy groceries! (Her only income is her social security check). Her response: "I'm 77 years old, and this is the most important election of my life. I can't do much, I'm going to give them what I can, and I'm going to give them my vote."
The short take on this is that, if people in southwestern Virginia are reacting this way to Obama, McCain is going to have a rough time in Virginia. But on a bigger scale, this election seems to be having an effect on the way people view their civic responsibilities. Part of it might be having an inspiring candidate like Obama, part of might be jeopardizing the nation's future by putting a joke like Sarah Palin on the ticket, and part of it might be the host of dramatic issues facing the country. Whatever it is, the people seem to be trying to take back the nation.