MELISSA BLOCK, Host:
Last night, Robert visited a Republican Party party. It was thrown by the delegation of a state where the presidential race is surprisingly close, according to the polls.
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JEFF FREDERICK: Good evening, Virginia Republicans.
ROBERT SIEGEL: And amid the festivities, Jeff Frederick appealed for donations to a Baton Rouge church for hurricane relief, and he appealed for attendance at today's abbreviated session.
FREDERICK: The RNC, Republican National Committee, has asked that everybody be ready to leave the hotel at 1:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. It is very, very, very important that if you're a delegate or an alternate, that you are there and in your seat. The last thing we want is the press scanning and seeing empty seats as we open up the convention, particularly when we're going to be doing everything we can, again, to recognize what's going on on the Gulf Coast.
SIEGEL: For the first time in decades, Virginia is in play. In recent years, Democrats have elected two straight governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. Two years ago, Democrat Jim Webb won a Senate seat, and Warner is heavily favored to win the other seat this year. The presidential race?
WENDELL WALKER: We're going to give Senator Obama the fight for his life.
SIEGEL: That's convention delegate Wendell Walker of Lynchburg. That's home to the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. When Republicans carry Virginia, they rack up big majorities in the south of the state, in conservative places like Lynchburg. For conservative Republicans like Mr. Walker, John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a big plus.
WALKER: I think among the conservatives, that's the signal that we've been looking for in the VP. I early on was not a John McCain supporter.
SIEGEL: Whom did you like more?
WALKER: I was - Mitt Romney was the one that I was favoring there, but I think several weeks ago, after watching the forum on Saddleback Church with Rick Warren, I think the nation really saw the difference between maturity and inexperience there.
SIEGEL: But what helps the Virginia GOP down South may not be so helpful in rapidly growing Northern Virginia, or NOVA, as retiring Republican Congressman Tom Davis calls it. He's a moderate who has represented the suburbs of Washington, D.C. for 14 years, and he's seen all the polls that show a Virginia dead heat.
TOM DAVIS: Obama is under-performing up in our area right now vis-ÃÂ -vis how Kaine and Webb did and the like, and so usually they win their races in the urban areas. And in NOVA, which is 30 percent of the vote, and he's not getting the vote out of there that he needs right now.
SIEGEL: You're talking about in Fairfax County, where you're from, in Northern Virginia.
DAVIS: Yeah. No. They're saying we can get (unintelligible) African-American turnout, but the other side of that is you look down to Buchanan County in Southwest Virginia, it's a white county. United Mine Workers used to hold reign down there. It's a county John Kerry carried. Obama lost it in the primary nine to one. He's going to have trouble taking it in the general.
SIEGEL: Representative Davis is a veteran of Republican conventions. For alternate Jenna Baker of Richmond, it's all new, and it's disappointing to her that Hurricane Gustav has scaled this convention back.
JENNA BAKER: Absolutely. This is my first convention. I was looking forward to seeing the President and the Vice President and the First Lady and just hearing all the different speakers, and it's definitely a disappointment. But they're doing what they have to do. They're, you know, taking care of our nation before they're taking care of their party. So...
SIEGEL: Well, as it turned out Laura Bush did address the convention. At age 23, Jenna Baker was understandably unfamiliar with the star who was working the room at the Ramada, the 74-year-old man with the golden pompadour and the white golf togs, 1950's teen idol Pat Boone.
PAT BOONE: Well, I left the golf course in Hilton Head, South Carolina a little while ago, flew up to be on with Sean Hannity at his request. But after I landed, I found out that they've changed the plans, like most everything here at the convention, and I guess they wanted to be concentrating on the hurricane.
SIEGEL: I think we're burying the lead. You left the golf course...
BOONE: Yes.
SIEGEL: ...to go on Sean Hannity?
BOONE: Yes. This is why I'm dressed like this.
SIEGEL: At the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, this is Robert Siegel.
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