Unfortunately, it's true about Southwest Virginia, too. All of our neighbors display liberal political signs at election time. We had a feud with the next door neighbor over a Bush '04 sign. I guess we won because he finally apologized after many visits to the courthouse to cause trouble and make us take the sign down after the election. He also took a swing at my husband, but things appear to be peaceable now. We kept sign up just because we could.
He's probably union of some sort.
Except for Blacksburg, all of SW Virginia that I know about is still conservative. The area would be a conservative stronghold except for a tendency for the state party to encourage candidates who think they can win by attacking their opponents as being "soft" on something, soft on taxes, soft on criminals, soft on abortion. The folks in my area want somebody with some character. Kaine and Webb came out looking like they had some character when their positions were portrayed in the campaign ads. To put it bluntly, the Republicans are chasing off their own natural voters.
Goerge Allen (whom I like) never stood up for his country, his president, his position on taxes or anything else. He made his ads without any effort to capitalize on his conservative political history. He came out looking like a coward and a bully and his voters didn't turn out.
Once conservative politicians begin to think that their states are "turning liberal" they tend to back away from the positions that brought them to prominence.