Apparently, President Obama is not too popular in Virginia. His only announced Virginia appearance during next week's bus tour is in a state senate district where the Democratic candidate has no Republican challenger in next month's election. Four previously reported stops in districts where the Democrat faces a challenger have apparently been dropped.
The Republican Party of Virginia says it's hard to find a Democratic candidate eager to be associated with the President. So they're having a contest, the "Proud to Stand with Obama" Direct Mail Scavenger Hunt (emphasis in original):
Find any general election direct mail piece from a Virginia Democrat running for the state Senate – or one from a Democrat committee – that uses a picture of President Obama in a positive light, i.e. "Supported/Endorsed by Barack Obama" or "Supports Obama's policies." (Note: Democratic primary mail pieces do not count!)
Then scan it and email it to contest@RPV.org or fax it to us at: (804) 343-1060. The first qualifying mail piece in the door wins the prize, an autographed copy of Karl Rove's "Courage and Consequences," and a "Not Again!" bumper sticker.
If no qualifying entry is submitted by Oct. 28, they'll award the prize to the first person to submit a direct mail piece from any of 10 Democratic state senate candidates "that proudly identifies them as the Democratic candidate."
The original contest idea, which involved the state's popular Republican governor, had to be scrapped:
The initial idea for this contest was to see how many different pieces of direct mail we could find in which Democrats running for the state Senate used the phase "worked with Governor McDonnell," or included a picture of themselves with Governor McDonnell… but we've seen several of those piece already, so that wouldn't have made for a very challenging scavenger hunt.