By Bob Gibson
When I was a student at the University of Virginia in the early 1970s, there was a sign that would pop up at basketball games that read “Barry Parkhill for President.“

Parkhill turned around a basketball program that had been in the doldrums and went on to become a pro player and college coach and associate athletic director.

He was smart not to run for president. The last guy with as good a jump shot who ran for that office, Bill Bradley, was 0 for 20 in primary and caucus states against Al Gore in 2000.

Virginians who have launched bids for the White House in recent years include former governors, not to mention presidential candidates Pat Robertson and Newt Gingrich (who votes in Northern Virginia.)

Many people do not think of Gingrich as a Virginian, but Gov. Bob McDonnell probably does, since two individuals from the same state are constitutionally prohibited from being White House running mates.

Virginia is a state in play for Republicans and, in fact, rarely has there been a time in the Old Dominion when so much has been in play for both parties.

Virginia’s political volatility stems from demographic changes and a rapidly changing media environment.

Only a few generations back, Virginia politics could be defined by a small electorate, a conservative Democratic governing elite and a dull predictability.

The electorate remains smallish, but it is nowhere near as small as when poll taxes and literacy tests were tools to keep black Virginians and the poor from the polls.

Virginia’s demographic changes continue to be dramatic.

Northern Virginia is more international than it is southern in nature. Half of Virginians were born outside this state.

A full 10 percent of all Virginians were born in another country.

About 40 percent from Asia, 36 percent from Latin America, 13 percent from Europe and 9 percent from Africa.

The top five countries of birth for foreign-born Virginia residents in 2010 were Mexico, El Salvador, India, Korea and Guatemala.

Virginia has had two Roman Catholic governors in a row, a thought unthinkable 50 years ago.

Today, such change in Virginia causes no one to blink an eye.

The media environment, driven by new technologies and the business realities of trying to adjust to them, is changing fastest and affecting politics at every level.

Delegate Rob Bell, R-Albemarle County, said the other day that for the first time there are more bloggers covering the Virginia General Assembly than there are reporters.

Bloggers tend to be more passionate and more partisan than reporters, and that shows in their blogs.

The instant images and flaws and gaffes that get transmitted through the 24-hour news cycle are different in the media these days and are repeated with a ferocious frequency.

How many times have we seen Mitt Romney offer Texas Gov. Rick Perry a $10,000 bet, or have we seen Perry forget the name of a federal department he would eliminate and say “Oops?“

Virginia’s old print media is partially depleted, scaled back and laid off. There are many fewer papers covering state government and the General Assembly than five years ago.

Those that are still covering Richmond are often trying to do so with less staff than before, or are doing so in new ways with new partners.

Charlottesville is fortunate to have The Daily Progress in a collaboration with Charlottesvile Tomorrow.

We are the media-rich exception to the rule that many communities are losing the print media coverage of local and state government that they once enjoyed.

Media coverage of government is essential to a free and prospering political system that well serves the public, but the 24-hour news cycle is reshaping politics in some negative ways.

The old big-tent models of political parties are being scrubbed clean of some who are not pure enough in their adherence to the sometimes rigid ideologies of the left and the right.

This partisan testing and insistence on purity is one reason that the numbers of independents are growing, here in Virginia and across the nation.

Think of the electorate today as roughly one third Republican, one-third Democratic and one-third Independent. Many of these new independents are no longer professing allegiance as Republicans or Democrats. 

The state is closer to the national model its politicians campaign against.
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