U.S. Sen. Barack Obama believes he can become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia since Lyndon Johnson did it in 1964.

If that's not true, then the presumptive nominee is doing a good job of making it appear so. He kicked off his general election campaign last month in Bristol, and this month he's opened 20 offices in Virginia, including locations in Bristol, Blacksburg, Martinsville, Danville and Roanoke.

Obama's presumptive Republican opponent, U.S. Sen. John McCain, has three offices open in the state, with plans for six more, including one that will open in Roanoke on Monday, a campaign spokeswoman said.

"By opening offices in areas that may not have seen Democratic presidential offices before, that shows we're not leaving any areas behind," said Clark Stevens, Obama's Virginia communications director.

During a news conference Wednesday at the Roanoke office, downtown at the corner of Second Street and Campbell Avenue Southwest, Virginia Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke, said that shows Virginia is "in play."

"He's not a dumb man -- if he didn't think he had a shot in Virginia, you wouldn't see 20 offices here," Ware said.

McCain last week opened offices in Fairfax and Richmond. He already maintains an office in Arlington.

Ware said that relatively small number shows McCain "is taking Virginia for granted."

Gail Gitcho, McCain's mid-Atlantic communications director, said that's not true. She said the McCain campaign will open its Roanoke office at 3904 Franklin Road S.W. on Monday. An office in Fredericksburg opens today. And the campaign also plans to open offices in Charlottesville, Virginia Beach and Southwest Virginia, as well as another in Northern Virginia.

"The McCain campaign has always considered Virginia to be a very important state," Gitcho said. "I know that it has been touted as a battleground state, and that's certainly how the mid-Atlantic campaign staff is operating -- that it is of incredible importance to campaign in Virginia very hard."

Democratic presidential candidates have long been unable to make inroads in Virginia. Since 1980, President Bill Clinton came closest during his re-election campaign against Bob Dole in 1996, when he lost the state by 47,290 votes, or just under 2 percent of the total vote.

Larry Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Wednesday two major factors make the 2008 presidential race different.

The first is money. Last month Obama rejected public funding for the race, meaning he won't be limited to the approximately $84 million offered through the taxpayer-funded public finance system. McCain has said he'll use the public funding.

"The likelihood is that Obama will outspend McCain by a factor of at least 2-to-1 in the general election," Sabato said.

That means Obama's got more money for staff and offices in targeted states such as Virginia.

Second, Democrats are hungry after being out of the Oval Office for eight years, Sabato said. Republicans, meanwhile, are a little more sated and not as satisfied by their candidate.

He said it's also important to look at the number of paid staffers assigned to the state. Officials from both the Obama and McCain campaigns declined to say exactly how many staffers they have assigned to Virginia. That's partly strategy, and partly because the numbers can quickly change.

"By Election Day, you have constant redeployments because the private and public polling numbers are suggesting that some states are becoming more competitive and others states are becoming less competitive," Sabato said.

Campaign offices serve many functions, distributing signs and acting as rallying points for volunteers and supporters.

Ware said that will be particularly important for the Obama campaign, as he has attracted enthusiastic supporters and many likely first-time voters.

But, Obama has also been criticized for modifying some of his positions for the general election. That's typical strategy for candidates moving out of a primary campaign targeted at core party voters. But will some of these new voters be disillusioned by a return to traditional political strategy from a candidate who promises change?

Ware said that shifting positions for a general election is part of the political process and suggested Obama tackle the question directly.

"One of his biggest assets is that people trust him," Ware said. "Don't run from it, say, 'Yes -- I had to do it in the primary because that's the way it's done, to make sure I got in the position to represent the entire country.' "

Sabato said he thinks the shift will result in the loss of some supporters -- but it will attract even more independent and moderate voters.

"By moving to the center, he probably wins more votes than he loses," Sabato said.