STERLING, Va.8212;Going to a rally featuring Joe Biden, Leslie Davidson knew she would like what he would say; but she didn’t know he would say precisely what she wanted to hear.
As part of a weekend visit to Virginia, Biden spoke to a crowd of several hundred. He surprised Davidson by talking about the importance of future Supreme Court justices8212;a topic she said had barely been dealt with before.
“I would love the campaigns to address how important the upcoming Supreme Court openings are,” she said minutes before the rally started. “But Biden won’t talk about it because it is too polar.”
Ana Maria Espino came to the rally hoping Biden would talk about pay disparity between men and women, but she expected he would simply focus on the economy. She was also pleasantly surprised as Biden spoke about the issue.
Democrats have been working hard in Virginia, which is typically a stronghold for Republicans. The last presidential candidate to win the state was Lyndon Johnson in 1964.
Michelle Obama, wife of presidential candidate Barack Obama, was in Virginia just days before. She spoke at the University of Virginia along with Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, at Charlottesville.
A Sept. 9 CNN/Time Magazine poll found that 46 percent of Virginians now favor Obama, with 50 percent favoring John McCain. Virginia has 13 electoral votes and is expected by some to be the most important state of the election if it goes to Obama.
Espino said the increase in Democratic power is two-fold. First, she said the Latino presence in Virginia is growing. Espino herself came from Cuba in the 1960s and said many Latino voters are leaning toward Obama.
Second, she said the northern parts of Virginia, especially around Washington, are growing fast and becoming more and more Democratic.
The purpose of Biden’s visit to Virginia was not only to target a key swing state, but also to target women, a key voting bloc in this election.
He attempted to address the issues important to women voters in Virginia.
Espino heard what she was waiting for midway into the rally as Biden turned the focus away from the economy to women in the workplace.
“When the economy goes south, who are the first people who get hurt the most?” Biden asked. “It’s women, it’s women.”
Biden said it is essential to protect women from economic turmoil by first raising the minimum wage and then ensuring women make as much money as men in the workplace.
“We value equal pay for equal work,” he said to cheers.
“I have seen pay disparity in my own life,” Espino said. “I am grateful he talked about it. He knows what we need here in Virginia.”
Biden then said one of the most pressing alarms of this election is that the next president may have the chance to appoint one to four new Supreme Court justices. The result could be devastating if Republicans are to do the choosing, he said.
“What do John and Sarah Palin say? They say that they want to appoint more Scalias, more Roberts, more Alitos,” Biden said, referring to three conservative justices. “These are decent, bright guys, but they are dead, dead, dead wrong. And ladies, once they are on the court, they will be there long after, long after the next president is gone.”
Davidson said she was impressed Biden discussed issues important to Virginia women.
“They must have done their research,” she said. “Everything he talked about was what we wanted to hear about.”
Biden was accompanied by his wife, sister, two daughters-in-law, niece and granddaughter as well as Sen. Barbara Mikulski, (D-Md.) who excited the crowd for the vice-presidential candidate.
“What we don’t need to get is four more years of a George Bush sound-a-like,” Mikulski said about McCain and Palin. “And we don’t need another George Bush in earrings being the number two slot.”
Davison expects both candidates to continue to focus on Virginia and hopes issues conerning women will continue to get exposure.
“We don’t normally get a lot of attention from presidential candidates,” she said. “But it is nice to have both parties here trying to get voters, it opens up lines of communication for us.”
Editor’s Note: Jed Layton is reporting in Sterling, Va. through the Hinckley Institute of Politics journalism program and Shantou University.
Ma Jing / Hinckley Institute Journalism ProgramJoe Biden spoke in Virginia about the future of the Supreme Court justices and how they could change with the electing of a new president.