I totally agree with you. I think McCain wins Va even if Obama wins 35 states. There is too many military, military retirees, and defense dept employees for Obama to win. This state is not really in play, but Obama will score a point if he has McCain spending time defending it.
People don’t really understand Va has not trended Democratic at the national level. Who was the last Democrat to win Va anyways? LBJ, right? If it’s real competitive there it’s already over.
Of course, I would like to see Obama spending as much time campaigning in the Dakotas as possible because the people in flyover country are less likely to stay on script and ask him only the screened questions.
In a former life, I was asked to prep our Japanese CEO for what later turned out to be a far less hostile media interview than we expected. Of course, we didn't know that at the time, so I gave him hostile questions and coached him on answers which we felt there was even a remote chance of being asked. The guy was OK, but did not have a great command of the English language (he was Japanese, after all), but came out looking really, really good on the 30 minute interview thanks, in some measure, with our two hours of preparation.
And I was (and am) no professional handler-- just a guy on staff with a journalism degree who happened to be available. So my question is that if I could do that for a man with limited command of English, why can't Obama's handlers allow a real interview for their guy who supposedly has superb command?