Another Warning Shot in Virginia

Democrats captured another Assembly seat in a special election yesterday. This time the victory came in Loudon County, one of the high-growth ex-urbs of a type that fueled President Bush's victory in 2004. Admittedly, not all ex-urbs are equal. Loudon's close proximity to DC makes it a haven for current and former bureaucrats and those who make their living off the federal contracting teat. Leesburg, the county seat, is trending artsy these days, a kind of St. Michael's, Maryland without the water. During a recent visit to Leesburg, Dr. Potomac passed a late-night palm-reading/blue-grass music joint right in the middle of town. He thinks this an ill omen in terms of Loudon's cultural and political future.

The scale of Democrat Mark Herring's victory is impressive as he garnered almost 70 percent of the vote over Mick Staton, a Republican county supervisor. The main issues in the race were the pace of development and traffic congestion -- not too suprising given the growing pains of the outer suburbs. The underlying problem for the Republican was undoubtedly that virtually no one was paying attention to a Statehouse by-election at the end of January. That's all well and good, but why not? Dr. Potomac thinks something deeper is at work here. After two very intense, "national security" elections and the grinding war in Iraq, he fears the base may be in a state of semi-exhaustion. And, while he appreciates Karl Rove's recent framing of the 2006 mid-term elections in national security terms, he wonders how much juice is actually in that issue right now. The trends don't look good this morning.