Political Civil War can't end soon enough

Updated November 05, 2012 11:12:23

Video: Obama revs up Virginia rally

There was something very apt about Barack Obama staging a weekend election rally near the Manassas Civil War battlefields in northern Virginia.

Virginia is one of the most critical political battlegrounds in this election, with both the president and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney determined to capture the state's 18 electoral votes.

If traffic and queues are any indication of electoral success, then the president is looking very good in this particular patch of America.

Four hours before the scheduled start of the event the lines were snaking for hundreds of metres and the car parks were quickly filling.

More than 24,000 Democrat supporters flocked to the huge outdoor amphitheatre to hear Mr Obama make one of his final pre-election pitches. The fact his warm-up acts were former President Bill Clinton and musician Dave Matthews probably didn't hurt turn out either.

Opinion polls in Virginia have had the state swinging either way over the last few months, and the latest RealClearPolitics average shows it's a virtual dead heat.

Mr Obama's win here in 2008 marked the first time the state went Democratic in a presidential election, and the Republicans are doing everything they can to return Virginia to the red fold.

Speaking to rugged up supporters as we waited for the rally to begin, there was a sense of cautious optimism about which way Virginia would fall on election day.

Video: A hoarse Bill Clinton addresses the Virginia rally

More than a few told me they were nervous about the outcome and hoped the wheeling out of big guns like Bill Clinton would be the difference between victory and defeat.

A sign of how busy the former president has been was clear as soon as he opened his mouth, his voice no more than a raspy whisper.

He'll need to consume throat lozenges in industrial quantities to get through the half a dozen appearances he's making in the dying hours of the campaign.

Something else that struck me was the disillusionment about the way this campaign has been conducted.

The personal attacks, the negative advertisements, the general nastiness. From both sides.

A first-time voter, 18-year-old Gary Letherger, told me he had been taken aback by the tone of political debate. And having been exposed to a blizzard of attack ads in the short time I've been back here, I can well understand what he's talking about.

"Hope and Change" is but a distant memory. It's political Civil War, and no inch is being given. Election Day can't come quickly enough.


First posted November 05, 2012 11:05:45