In the world of politics, nearly every elected official or civic leader has at one point said something stupid, regrettable, insulting or downright confounding. But in recent years, well-known personalities in Virginia have had a disproportionate number of serious flubs, many of which have become national scandals.

The mother of all these foot-in-the-mouth moments is surely George Allen’s infamous 2006 “macaca” comment. Caught on tape and beamed to a national audience via YouTube, the insensitive remark helped propel challenger Jim Webb to victory, thus pushing the Senate into Democratic hands and further pushing Virginia toward the crucial swing state that it is today. Just a few months later, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) made national headlines when he criticized Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) for using the Koran during his swearing-in ceremony. Though Ellison, who was the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, was already something of a star, the controversy with Goode made him a nationally recognized figure.

More recently, John McCain’s brother caused some commotion when he referred to Northern Virginia as “communist country” during a rally in Northern Virginia. Bobby May, the McCain campaign chair in Buchanan County, drew fire when he published an op-ed saying that Obama would “raise taxes to pay for free drugs for [his] inner-city political base” and “raise taxes to send $845 billion, most of it to Africa so the Obama family there can skim off enough for them to free their goats and live the American Dream.” (McCain removed May from his position during the ensuing uproar.) And just last week, the chairman of the Republican Party in Virginia, Jeff Frederick, provoked a still ongoing scandal when he equated Barack Obama with Osama Bin Laden.

So we know Virginia is a hotly contested state and the Republican Party is struggling to keep it red, but is there something we’re missing here? What’s with Virginia and major political gaffes?