Another campaign, mercifully, is edging toward fruition only to give way to another, a process less like the changing of the seasons, which are a delight, and more like modern multimedia, which are edging toward delirium, like a maze of slot machines in some cheap Vegas casino, all flashing lights and buttons but no winners. One campaign ends and another begins, the lines fade to nonexistence, so the ends and beginnings are lost and forgotten, and power passes from one party to the next and back again, and the people who still play do so in the role of suckers, pulling levers in vain hope of hitting a jackpot on a machine rigged never to pay a dime.

HOT SPRINGS — Solving Virginia’s transportation problems drew the strongest discussion between candidates Bob McDonnell and Sen. Creigh Deeds on Saturday in the first gubernatorial debate of the 2009 campaign.

Whatever compromise it might engender, politics is more artful than art, evidenced by the ritual whir of campaign spin and a resulting diffusion of rhetorical miasma thick enough to slice. This explains the scenario that has Republican gubernatorial contender Bob McDonnell and Democratic foe R. Creigh Deeds drifting toward that gooey locus known as the center, chanting om and drawing near one another, philosophically now and maybe at the polls later, like last time.

Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell said Friday he is not sweating a GOP losing streak in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial elections that stretches back to 2001.

CHARLOTTESVILLE — As Shahnaz Ghassemi walked amid the protesters in Tehran, the Albemarle County resident passed a woman holding up a poem, shielding her face, fingers painted with green nail polish curled around the paper’s edges.

More than 3,000 surprise votes from Charlottesville gave Democratic congressional candidate Tom Perriello an unexpectedly wide lead Thursday in his race against six-term GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount.

Though a Democrat carried Old Dominion for the first time since 1964, Virginia remains a state right of center.

Fresh from a decisive victory in the Virginia U.S. Senate race Tuesday, Mark Warner said the onus is now on producing results for Virginia residents and the country.

Incumbent 6th District Rep. Bob Goodlatte won a ninth term Tuesday by sweeping past Democratic challenger Sam Rasoul.

Political guru Larry Sabato expects a banner day for Democrats.

Virginia’s U.S. Senate race is largely being forgotten as attention focuses on the presidential battle.

Minor equipment glitches, long lines the rule of the day so far in Florida

Record numbers spill into polls across Eastern Seaboard

Packed parking lots and long lines mark Waynesboro polling site

Polling officials braced for problems as voters begin what experts predict will be a record turnout.