Could Obama Be the Virginia Victor?

Oct. 22, 2008 — -- At this week's Sunday morning service, the pastor at the Third Baptist Church of Portsmouth, Va., filled his sermon with a striking note of urgency, 16 days before Election Day.

"I want you to vote. I want you to vote early!" the Rev. Joseph B. Fleming implored.

"We're in combat! You heard what I say? We're in combat. This is a battle that must be won!" Fleming cried, as heads nodded and shouts of "Yessir!" and "Hallelujah!" echoed through the chapel.

"It's not about any one candidate. It's about you. It's about your grandchildren. It's about the sacrifice that our foreparents made," Fleming told the congregation, comprised entirely of African-Americans.

In his quest to become the first Democrat to win Virginia in two generations, Sen. Barack Obama will count on sizable support in cities like Portsmouth, which is 50 percent black.

"I think whoever can win this area, I think that's where our president will come from," said Edward Parker, the president of Third Baptist's men's choir.

Just a short drive from the church is the Norfolk Naval Base, the area's predominant employer and the heart of this military community. Shipyards line the landscape.

At Sen. John McCain's local headquarters in Virginia Beach, volunteer Troy Cole was among the half-dozen workers dialing voters Sunday morning.

"McCain is going to bring us jobs, rather than allow businesses to continue to relocate overseas as Bush has allowed to happen," Cole said. "Obama will lose jobs and spend more."

"Virginia's gonna remain a red state," Cole confidently predicted.

But the fact that this critical region, the coastal southeastern portion of the state known as Hampton Roads, is in play in this election underscores the challenge McCain faces here.

"Although I've always been kind of a GOP guy, I'm probably still up in the air and may even go the other direction," said one man in his late 40s who declined to give his name but noted he works for the Department of Defense.

The man said many of his neighbors in the military towns along the Chesapeake Bay are feeling the same way.

"I think there's a lot of folks that are moving more toward the Democratic side, because they're a little disheartened with the last eight years with the way the GOP has gone," he said.