McCain's Decline In Virginia Not Limited To 'Communist Country'

Over the weekend, John McCain's brother Joe leveled his best zinger at the residents of Arlington County and Alexandria, Virginia labeling the region "Communist country":

"I've lived here for at least 10 years and before that about every third duty I was in either Arlington or Alexandria, up in communist country," Joe McCain said at an event in Loudon [sic] County, Va.

It's a curious insult to level at a part of the country where McCain himself has chosen to live, in one of his seven homes. Even more so considering that he chooses to live in Crystal City, the one part of Arlington that fails to improve on the aesthetics of Stalin-era Soviet architecture. Nevertheless, Joe McCain has a point: the speculation that Barack Obama has shot at turning the Commonwealth of Virginia from red to blue -- which is presumably, in Joe McCain's estimation, a different shade of Red -- would not find its fuel were it not for the reliably Democratic-tilting Arlington and Alexandria.

That said, the most recent SurveyUSA poll suggests that the entire Commonwealth might be experiencing something of a Bolshevik revolution. Forget the 53-43% spread on the top line. Here's the part of the poll that ought to worry the McCain campaign:

McCain no longer leads in any region of the state. In Northeastern VA, which includes the DC suburbs, Obama leads by 24 points. In Central Virginia, home of the Confederate White House, the Museum of the Confederacy and Appomattox, Obama today leads by 8. In Southeastern Virginia, Obama leads by 11. In the Shenandoah, where John McCain led by 24 points one month ago, Obama and McCain today tie.