I am a Virginian born and bred. My mother's people were Virginians before Virginia was Virginia. They met the first settlers when they arrived to found Jamestown in 1607. One married John Rolfe. She rests a few miles down the road from me here in England, for her sins. For mine, I'll rest in the Commonwealth, I hope.
I am a proud Virginian and proud of the people who made the Commonwealth great. Because of Virginians, we have a Constitution (James Madison), a Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson) and a Bill of Rights (George Mason). We can claim the first President and the first woman to be elected to the British Parliament. We might have been stupid enough to house the capital of the Confederacy, but in 1989, we elected the first African American governor to preside over that old capital, and that's when Derval Patrick was still in short trousers.
Johnnie Cash married a Virginian. So did Al Gore.
We've given America eight Presidents, and we're waiting on Number Nine - please, may he or she be a Democrat.
