Roy Mabry, a businessman here in Russell County, is unfettered in his optimistic belief that Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama can win in Southwest Virginia.

Says the Obama-button-wearing Mabry: "I haven't seen any Republicans. I believe we done run them out of town."

Not to be out-enthused by a Democrat, retiree Glenda Short of neighboring Dickenson County, who keeps a minimum of six signs in her yard touting Arizona Sen. John McCain for president, says Republicans in the mountainous region are giddy over the prospect of helping their candidate take the state.

"Everybody wants yard signs. A gentleman stopped by the other day and said he wanted one but couldn't find any, and my husband said, 'Here, take one from our yard.'"

Southwest Virginia is conservative country, a place where President Bush swept up 60 percent of the vote in 2004, compared with 54 percent statewide.

With Virginia a battleground this year, McCain supporters are working to hang on to those votes and possibly add to them, while Obama supporters are laboring to trim the margin in hopes that a lead elsewhere in the state will put the Illinois senator over the top.

From the Cumberland Gap across the coalfields and up to the railroad city of Roanoke -- essentially the 9th Congressional District -- voters are slapping bumper stickers on their trucks, stabbing campaign signs into their lawns, dealing out campaign literature, and volunteering at local Republican and Democratic offices.

"We feel we're going to do OK there," Obama spokesman Kevin Griffis says of Southwest Virginia. "But I don't think there's any question it's a steeper climb" than in other parts of the state.

Likewise, former state Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, co-chairman of McCain's Virginia campaign, says: "We're looking to increase our numbers."

Without a doubt, Obama is the underdog here. In The Times-Dispatch Poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. and released Thursday, voters in Southwest Virginia prefer McCain to Obama, 54 percent to 39 percent, with 7 percent undecided.

In 2004, Bush won 59.5 percent of the vote against Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, in the 9th District.

Joe Lane, chairman of the political science department at Emory & Henry College in Washington County, says it's possible Obama needs to pick up only a few thousand extra votes in Southwest Virginia to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since 1964. It's also possible, if things go well for him in Northern Virginia, that Obama may need only to hold McCain to the 60 percent that Bush received in the region.

It's "somewhat far-fetched," he says, to think Obama can beat McCain in Southwest Virginia.

To be sure, if the Democratic primary is any indicator, Obama is not the first choice among the region's Democrats: In February, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced him, winning more than 80 percent of the vote in some coalfield counties even as Obama won statewide.

Another point to consider: There is no large base of black voters for Obama to draw on. Blacks account for only 1 percent to 4 percent of voters in many of the counties, and just 0.4 percent in Dickenson and Lee counties.

McCain supporters think another circumstance works to their benefit: Rep. Rick Boucher, the 9th District's popular Democratic congressman, is running unopposed for re-election. That means Boucher's formidable get-out-the-vote machine is not running full-throttle, Kilgore says.

Add to all that McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"I got so excited when he picked her. I thought it was fantastic," says Republican Kathy Drummond of Christiansburg, who with her husband owns and runs the Inn at Hans Meadow. Drummond says she has a giant McCain sign in the lot across from her bed-and-breakfast, and another on her lawn, and she actively tries to persuade other business owners to support the Republican ticket.

Kilgore says Palin's conservative values are perfectly attuned to those of Southwest Virginia.

But Democrats, while taking solace in the notion that Obama needs only to close the gap, not win, in the district, also take heart in the fact that former Democratic Gov. Mark R. Warner, running for the U.S. Senate, is on the ballot, and his widespread popularity in the district could bring votes to Obama. Other well-liked Democrats such as Boucher, Sen. Jim Webb and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine also have tried to rub some of their popularity onto Obama.

And while the primary battle against Clinton went awry in Southwest Virginia, Obama supporters say it energized the party, driving several thousand people to register to vote. The Obama campaign has seven offices in Southwest Virginia, compared with McCain's two, and organizers say they are staffed by a steady stream of volunteers.

In a bid to maintain their strength in Southwest Virginia, Republicans are trying to make the case in a new radio ad that Obama and Biden would hurt coal miners in Virginia.

Speaking to an environmentalist during a campaign event in Ohio last month, Biden said: "We're not supporting clean coal. . . . No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they're going to build them, over there. Make them clean."

Biden says he was making the point that America needs to export "clean-coal" technology to China.

Obama has received the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America. Among those volunteering for Obama are members of the powerful union that has more than 5,000 members in the region.

As for Palin's nomination, Democrats aren't impressed.

"I think he picked her because he thought he'd get all the women who supported Hillary to vote for him," says Shirley Hall, who volunteered last month to serve fish at the UMW's annual fish fry in Castlewood. "It may work, but not as well as he thinks it will. She's a woman, but she's a bully."

To underscore the importance of the district, Obama has visited it twice, campaigning once in Bristol and once in Lebanon. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Obama's running mate, spoke at the fish fry. McCain and Palin have yet to pay a visit to Southwest Virginia, but Kilgore says it's possible they could show up before Election Day.
Contact Rex Bowman at (540) 344-3612 or rbowman@timesdispatch.com.