Well, as a northern Virginia (inner DC suburbs) resident who previously lived in Maryland and had thought of myself as a "Maryland person" and not a "Virginia person", I have to say how delighted I am that Virginia's cup runneth over of late with quality elected officials and candidates galore.

Yesterday Democratic primaries were held for the northern Virginia Congressional races.  In the race that was probably most in doubt, the Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (akin to the county chairperson in, with about a million residents, one of the larger counties in the United States), Gerry Connolly, defeated former Congresswoman Leslie Byrne for the Democratic nomination for the seat about to be vacated by the influential Republican Rep. Tom Davis, who is retiring. 

Although there may well have been other factors involved, I take the fact that Senator Jim Webb endorsed Byrne in this primary as a possible sign that he is working to address concerns about his attitudes towards women--either because he is seriously interested in the VP nomination or because he may have continuing national political ambitions going forward.

The Democratic Congressional nominee in my CD, Judy Feder, is a terrific candidate.  She ran against the entrenched long-term Republican incumbent Frank Wolf in 2006 and did better than any other of Wolf's previous challengers. 

My wife and I hosted a gathering where interested friends and neighbors had a chance to meet her.  It was a substantive discussion, almost all about issues she would be dealing with.  She came off as what she is--not only well-informed but approachable and engaging.  She's been working hard on this race going back to last summer and has greater name recognition to build upon this time.   

I touched bases with each of them privately afterwards and they were uniformly impressed and enthusiastic about her candidacy.  My wife may have been the most impressed.  She rarely gets excited about politicians or candidates.  As Hillary Clinton's fortunes waned Feder's candidacy now has my wife jazzed and eager to reach out to her local network.

If northern Virginians are going to unseat Frank Wolf this is the year to do it.  Feder will not be favored to win, but this is a great and, in this year's emerging political context, quite doable chance for a pickup in the House. 

Feder would vote the right way on a wide range of issues on which Frank Wolf has been voting the wrong way over the years.  In addition to contributing money my wife and I are going to try to find as much time as we can to help Feder and Obama as November nears.  Mark Warner is about as sure a thing as one finds in politics to win in a landslide for the Senate seat to be vacated by Republican John Warner, and needs our help far less, I judge.

So if you happen to have politically interested and sympathetic friends or relatives in northern Virginia, please spread the word to consider helping out Judy (as well as Obama, of course) in whatever way they can!