A New Political Geography

"The trend is clear: The Democrats have a firewall in the metropolis, and it is increasingly moving outside the beltways," Lang said.

West Virginia's Red Trend

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) argued that Democrats should nominate her because she could win states such as West Virginia, but in settling on Obama, the party has taken a bet on its future. Obama barely campaigned in West Virginia, lost it by 41 points and will probably spend little time campaigning there.

Leading Democrats in West Virginia lament Obama's lack of effort, contrasting it with the campaign of John F. Kennedy, who, like Obama, faced hurdles as a minority in West Virginia -- in Kennedy's case, as a Roman Catholic -- but set out to win the 1960 primary there.

But the West Virginia of 1960 was different politically, with gratitude for the New Deal still running high. The state has made strides, but it remains among the poorest and oldest.

Democrats still control state government and all but one of the state's seats in Congress, and registered Democrats outnumber Republicans. But the state voted for Bush by six points over Gore and 13 points over Kerry. Its pro-Democrat unions have declined.

Since 2000, an argument has raged over why voters in West Virginia and elsewhere have voted against Democrats who offered health-care and tax plans that favor them. In his 2004 book "What's the Matter with Kansas?", Thomas Frank argued that Republicans have used social issues such as abortion to win poorer voters.

Bartels, at Princeton, disputed Frank with data showing that higher-income voters are more likely than poorer ones to cite issues such as abortion. Outside the South, low-income whites have stayed loyal to Democrats, he said.

Political scientists Ruy Teixeira and Alan Abramowitz countered by showing that working-class white voters -- whom they define more broadly than Bartels -- have been deserting the Democrats for years. This has hurt the party, they say, but will matter less as that group dwindles as a share of the electorate.

In West Virginia, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, the only Republican in the state's congressional delegation, said it was simple: As national Democrats focused on a cosmopolitan constituency, her party made clear that it understood West Virginia's culture.

The Democrats "do appeal more to an upper-middle-class, higher-educated, faster-moving kind of voter," she said. "Voters here are still waking up in the morning saying, 'I want to make sure my kids get fed and that someone's not trading away my constitutional rights.' "

Gov. Joe Manchin III (D) gives a similar diagnosis, saying that he has to convince West Virginians that national Democrats would not be able to take away gun rights, even if they wanted to -- and that he has to persuade his party to give his state another look. "I've encouraged Barack. I say, 'Please come back to West Virginia and sit down and talk to people so they'll get to know you.' "

In Grafton, residents agree that the national Democratic Party now represents a part of the country that has moved beyond them. The town of 5,500 was once a vibrant place with a strong link to cities: The railroad passed through after crossing the Cumberland Gap, with one line continuing to Columbus and one to Cincinnati. At its peak, it employed 3,000 to maintain engines. A whole economy, including a seven-story hotel, sprang up around it.

But the passenger trains stopped running in the 1970s, and the diesel engines that still rumble through, hauling coal, are maintained elsewhere. The few companies left include a sheet-glass firm and a maker of the adhesive on no-lick stamps. The Beaux Arts train station is a museum, and the hotel looms empty.

Keith Thompson's father was a cabbie at the station, and his father-in-law was a train inspector, but Thompson, 52, works in Morgantown, 25 miles away, delivering uniforms to coal miners and car mechanics. He has voted Republican for years, fed up with West Virginia Democrats who he thinks have crippled the state with taxes, regulation and welfare, and national Democrats who he thinks want to take away his semiautomatic rifles.

For Whitehair, the highway worker, the turning point in 2000 was the Democrats' fight to save the northern spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. He will vote Republican again because McCain was a Vietnam POW. Also, he "heard Obama was a Muslim" -- a false rumor.

Whitehair said Grafton has suffered in the past decade, but he put much of the blame on Democratic "career politicians" representing the state rather than on President Bush. "You'd have to find fault with all of them," he said.

Virginia Becoming Blue

In Northern Virginia, it is the Republicans looking for answers. The region has boomed, adding 300,000 people in the first half of the decade. With Kerry having claimed Fairfax County in 2004, Obama will push outward, trying to duplicate the success of Democratic Sen. James Webb and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in Loudoun and Prince William counties, where growth is tinged with anxiety over the housing crash and gas prices.

Some local Republicans play down the shift. State Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II says the region has become more Democratic because many residents work for the government or government contractors, and have a "pro-bigger-government leaning." State Del. David B. Albo argues it is not the highly educated who have turned Fairfax blue. "My bet is that it's those who are on food stamps and government services who tend to be more Democratic," he said.

Vince Callahan isn't so sure. "It's a permanent trend," said Callahan, who gave up the last General Assembly seat held by a Republican inside the Beltway last year. "You have a very sophisticated electorate here that doesn't like the narrow focus of the Republican Party."

Among those the GOP has lost is Margaret Volpe, 64, a Navy employee who moved to Centreville from Indiana with her husband 20 years ago. After voting mostly Republican for years, she switched to Kerry in 2004. She thought the war in Iraq "was not something we needed to do." And health care mattered more to her after she was diagnosed with breast cancer 13 years ago, got involved in advocacy work and became "very aware of people who don't have coverage."

Then there's Bruzas, the systems engineer, who waited for the Obama rally with a copy of Newsweek. A graduate of Purdue University, he left Indiana as fast as he could, did a stint in Raleigh, N.C., then came to Fairfax.

He grew up in a Republican home and used to be apathetic about politics. But he was bothered to find on a recent trip to Europe that people there had a darker view of his country than when he visited in the late 1990s. He didn't like the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy. He started reading political blogs. And he decided to come to the rally, which was easy to do because his job is "flexible, so I was working at home and cut out early."

So flexible, he may move soon, to try another place. It wouldn't be hard, since Cisco has branches everywhere. Or rather: in every major metro area, where, chances are, Bruzas's politics would be right at home.