Whenever I read the words, "You're not from around here, are you?" I automatically imagine them being said with a serious Southern--or at least rural--twang. This election year in Virginia, though, I think that expression has a decidedly suburban lilt--as it's the overwhelming sentiment Creigh Deeds has encountered as he's trawled for votes in Northern Virginia.

Ever since 2001, when their successful gubernatorial candidate Mark Warner commissioned a bluegrass campaign song and sponsored a NASCAR team as part of his "rural strategy," Virginia Democrats have been preoccupied with winning over rural voters, especially in Southwest Virginia. In Deeds, it seemed they'd found the perfect candidate for doing so. A state senator from sparsely populated Bath County near the West Virginia border, Deeds's support of gun rights--not to mention his firsthand experience castrating large farm animals--make him very much at home in Virginia's rural areas. But those traits have made him an alien in Northern Virginia. And despite the best efforts of rural-vote-gurus like Mudcat Saunders to argue otherwise, Virginia Democrats' path to victory still runs through the D.C. suburbs.