With all the attention that Western Virginia is getting from the candidates lately, it’s sometimes easy to forget that there’s another Virginia — you know, the one with a lot more of the state’s population.

Last week, I travelled through that part of the Old Dominion on my way to see baseball games in Washington and Baltimore.

When I took the Metro from Northern Virginia into D.C., lo, what did I see plastered at every subway stop in Virginia but a picture of Mitt Romney.

Not exactly an image the Romney campaign would approve of, though:

This sign is at every Metro stop in Virginia that I saw last week.

I have one more vacation photo to share. While taking my morning walk in Baltimore, what did I discover near my hotel but . . . a communist bookstore!

Technically, the store prefers to be called a “radical” bookstore, but if you’re calling yourself “Red Emma’s,” well, I don’t think that’s red as in “red states” and “blue states.”

I ventured in out of curiosity. The coffee shop fare was strictly vegan. There were lots of posters in support of Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier accused of leaking secrets to Wikileaks. I also noticed a sign asking shoppers not to “steal, liberate or lift” the merchandise — because the store needed the profit to survive.

– Dwayne Yancey

Baltimore has a communist bookstore. It prefers to be called a "radical" bookstore, though.