Amazingly enough, Tom (“Common Good Catholic”) Perriello seems to have knocked off Virgil (Good ol’ Boy) Goode in Virginia’s fifth CD. Goode, you’ll recall, is the guy who sent around a letter to his constituents two years ago tying the election of Keith Ellison, the country’s first Muslim member of Congress (who used a Koran for his swearing in ceremony), to the immigration issue:

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America. If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”

He expressed his immigration views succinctly by declaring, “I say if you are here illegally and you want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico to fly the Mexican flag.” In its editorial endorsement of Perriello, the Danville Register and Bee called Goode’s comments on the Mexican flag and Ellison “at best stupid, and at worst, dangerous considering this region’s past treatment of minorities.”
“He’s off to greener pastures,” Ellison said in a phone interview Friday. “It breaks my heart.”
Update: On Slate, Dahlia Lithwick, of Charlottesville, gushes.