A place of political sanity remaining in Northern VA

Washington Post:

One of the last remaining Republican enclaves in the Democratic stronghold of Northern Virginia is not in Loudoun, and it's not in Prince William: It's Clifton, a tiny Civil War-era railroad town in southwestern Fairfax County.

Since 2000, the last time most voters in Northern Virginia sided with a Republican for president, the region's political map has changed dramatically. With each year, Democrats have captured more ground, gaining majorities in Centreville, Sterling, Manassas and McLean and upending decades of GOP-leaning voting patterns.

But not in Clifton. The 4,500 registered voters of the town and its surrounds, a rolling rural expanse of estates and horse farms along Bull Run Creek and the Occoquan River, have unwaveringly defied the trend lines. Clifton voted for Republicans Mark L. Earley and Jerry W. Kilgore for governor in 2001 and 2005; for George Allen for the U.S. Senate in 2006; and, by an almost 2 to 1 margin last month, for Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the GOP presidential nominee.

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Clifton's downtown is a quaint collection of Victorian houses, a general store and a restaurant, the Heart in Hand, that was a Nancy Reagan favorite when her husband was president. Outside of town, Clifton's estates rise one after another along scenic roads, often separated by picturesque post-and-rail fencing or old-growth boxwood.

"We have a lot of successful businesspeople down here, business owners," said Mayor Tom Peterson, a retired schoolteacher who lives on historic Main Street. "Business owners tend to go with Republicans. That's my personal slant on it."

Peterson, a self-described "conservative Republican," finds it remarkable the way the area around Clifton has shifted so much toward Democrats.

"We are an island in Fairfax County," he said. "I am a lifelong resident of Fairfax, and I have friends who hold the same views as I do. We do ask ourselves sometimes, 'Who are these people?' "

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I know the area from first hand experience as well as from the history books. I lived in Woodbridge for a time just across a wooden bridge from Occoquan. When I was stationed at Camp Upshur while in OCS we did maneuvers along Bull Run which would be considered a creek in Texas. It is beautiful countryside. It is sad to see the rest of Northern Virginia go over to the dark side. It must be the expansion of government workers into the area. It is obviously another reason to work for limited government.