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Region needs to make most of new electoral clout
If we learned just one thing during this year's historic presidential campaign, it's that Northern Virginia officially has a seat at the big table.
When future presidential candidates begin plotting electoral strategy, we suspect places like Fairfax City, Leesburg and Manassas will come up early in the conversation.
President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain certainly recognized the region's value. On the final stop of his 22-month campaign, Obama chose to address thousands of Northern Virginians in Prince William County. McCain spoke to a group of business owners in Springfield just 48 hours before ballots were cast.
While all of the attention is flattering, we can do a better job of leveraging our status as a "battleground" state than we did this year.
The next time a presidential candidate spends an afternoon in Loudoun or a morning in Chantilly, they should be brought up to speed on two or three of the region's central issues and asked how they plan to help.
For example, what does an Obama presidency mean to thousands of government contractors who live and work in Fairfax County? What would a McCain presidency have done to push rail to Dulles forward?
What can Obama do to make sure our region's "legal" immigrants don't become targets of a crackdown on those without proper paperwork? Does either man's energy plan translate to new jobs in Vienna or Ashburn?
The list goes on and on.
If these folks expect to lock up an extra 100,000 votes in a game-changing state like Virginia, they shouldn't get a pass on tough regional questions.
We didn't get those answers this time. That's the bad news. The good news is our status as a national power broker isn't going to change between now and 2012.
In the interim, make it a point to remember promises our various candidates made this year and be sure to hold them accountable the next time their seat comes up.
Trust us, we have their attention.
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