In Virginia, today's election more than just a governor's race
WASHINGTON -- The names on the ballot are Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore, but bragging rights in today's gubernatorial election in Virginia will go to one of the state's two presidential aspirants, Democratic Governor Mark Warner or Senator George Allen.
They have made the Kaine/Kilgore race a test of their own political clout at a time when each wants to show his stuff -- and when dowdy old Virginia has become a highly relevant microcosm of the United States.
Virginia was once the most populous state and home to four of the first five presidents. But economic changes, patterns of growth, and losing the Civil War in particular conspired to diminish its prominence.
From the late 19th century through most of the 20th, Virginia's only link to the presidency was the number of tourists lined up at Mount Vernon and Monticello. Like most of the South, the former capital of the Confederacy was run by Democrats who were too conservative to be their party's national standard-bearers.
After the civil rights movement, Virginia moved toward the Republicans. And now, arguably, it mirrors national politics: still basically conservative, but receptive to moderate Democrats. More importantly, each party's strategy for winning statewide elections in Virginia is similar to its strategy for winning national elections.
Virginia Democrats must make a strong showing in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, then pick off enough regions from around the state to cobble together a majority. Republicans control Virginia's more conservative heartland and often try to rally their base voters with a strong ideological message, such as cutting taxes or ending parole for convicted felons.
Warner -- a multimillionaire investor and problem solver who is the liberals' answer to Mitt Romney -- won the Democratic way. Allen -- the conservative, genial son of a famous football coach who is often compared to George W. Bush -- won the Republican way.
Though he lived in the D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Warner campaigned aggressively in the state's rural areas, delivering a message of cultural conservativism, exemplified by his opposition to new gun controls, and economic improvement, backed up by his work as a businessman to create high-tech jobs in struggling corners of the state.
Virginia's economy has improved during Warner's single term as governor, and his pragmatic approach has worn well in all parts of the state.
Over the past three decades, Democratic presidential voters have shown a fondness for new faces with messages of competence rather than ideology and the party has had national success in recent years with Southern governors heading the ticket.
Kaine, who has been lieutenant governor under Warner, seems to be gunning the Warner for President bandwagon when he points to Virginia as a model for how to clean up Bush's Washington.
Allen, of course, sees little wrong with Bush's Washington. In style, Allen is the national politician most similar to Bush, their successes more the natural confluence of background and personality than any deliberate effort.
Like Bush, Allen bridled under a successful father whose name he carried. There was also a large, mostly loving family, a somewhat wayward youth, and a desire to craft an independent identity.
Allen's life, like the president's, was more privileged and less authentically Southern than it now appears. George Allen Sr. was a thinking man's football coach in Los Angeles and Washington; the family lived, among other places, in a plush estate in Potomac, Md.
But Senator Allen identifies himself strongly with the average NASCAR dad. He sometimes opens his speeches by asking how many people came in pickup trucks or SUVs. After a big show of hands, he proclaims, ''It's good to be in America."
Most Republicans are closely identified with one of the three great pillars of modern conservatism: supply-side economics, a strong military, or the religious right. Allen is equally credible in all three camps, making him a natural presidential prospect.
Now, as he has traveled Virginia campaigning for Kilgore, Allen seems determined to remind voters that they are conservatives. Kilgore has closed his campaign with two negative ads: One makes clear that he favors the death penalty more than Kaine; one accuses Kaine of favoring a plan to allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to public school.
The race is close. Democrats think voters will sour on Kilgore's negative campaigning; Republicans think Kilgore's ads will remind the conservative faithful that Kaine is, at bottom, a liberal Democrat.
Warner and Allen will be awaiting the outcome with great expectations.
Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond. 