Posted on 10/21/2008 9:23:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Amid reports of the John McCain camp narrowing the number of states in which it is truly competing, all eyes in the political world have turned toward Pennsylvania (in part because that's where the candidate spent his day hard at it on the stump).
With polls showing Barack Obama poised to win at least four states President Bush carried in 2004 -- Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia and Colorado -- the question has become which major state could McCain snatch from the Democratic column to maintain GOP control of the White House.
That's where Pennsylvania, with its 21 electoral votes, comes in, as Newsweek's Andrew Romano adroitly detailed earlier today. Romano also appropriately cast a skeptical eye on that strategy, in light of what the Pennsylvania polls have been indicating.
McCain's political director, Mike Duhaime, counters such naysaying.
He conducted a conference call with reporters this afternoon, and The Times' Bob Drogin relates that the operative insisted “we feel we’re going to be successful” in Pennsylvania.
One reason: Duhaime termed McCain the most appealing GOP presidential candidate to Pennsylvania voters since Ronald Reagan.
He also broke down some numbers from the '04 race, arguing that....
...since Democrat John Kerry won the state by only 140,000 votes, McCain “needs to flip” only 2,000 votes in each the state’s 67 counties.
Here's what else Duhaime had to say, as passed along by Drogin:
He said the campaign is operating three dozen offices in the state and is making hundreds of thousands of phone calls every week to identify and persuade potential GOP voters. The data mining efforts are aimed at identifying former Hillary Clinton supporters and independents who are prepared to consider McCain’s message. He said the internal data is “trending” in McCain’s direction and is showing “a lot of things” not apparent
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
“I don’t believe that about VA and CO. Obama will get IA and probably NM. The big prize is PA.”
I don’t believe that the majority of the people in Colorado or Nevada will vote against an Arizona senator who also has a western “frontier” running mate. I also don’t believe that a majority of people in New Mexico will vote against McCain-Palin either, but Gov. Bill Richardson practiced voter fraud in the 2004 election and they couldn’t call his state for almost ten days or so. Therefore, I’m not counting on New Mexico. I think the fact that McCain is not endorsing ethanol (made from corn) because he feels has to for the best energy policy, politically speaking, may cost him Iowa. I think if McCain told how he thinks Iowa will go, he’d say it’s 50:50. It would be like Iowans, however, to vote with McCain “to help save the country” in spite of McCain not promoting ethanol as a fuel. i do believe that McCain-Palin will take Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanians know they’re “the real deal”.
I visited Philly back in April I was there a total of 4 days and was asked to Reister to vote by 6 different people (all Wearing Obama Buttons) I explained each time I was from out of state and already registered and I was repeatedly told that did not matter.
I would love to see McCain win PA but I ain't Holding my breath. I think He has a Better Shot at taking all Of Bush's States.
What I see in the areas that I travel are many more McCain signs than Obama signs. I am only counting signs that are in peoples’ yards, not ones that were obviously deployed by teams of campaign workers in non-residential locations.
Obama supporters have no incentive not to proclaim their choice, while McCain supporters have the very real expectation of vandalism, or worse. Even so, there are still many more McCain signs. Kerry took this area by about 2% last time.
What’s more, signs for down-ticket DemocRats significantly outnumber Obama signs.
And, most importantly, Pennsylvania is full of bitter rednecks, clinging to their guns and bibles, and they already have their Savior. They don’t need another one.
Anecdotally, I am seeing waaaay more Mccain/Palin yard signs then I did in 2004 for Bush/Cheney. Also, my yard signs have not been stolen or vandalized this year either. Can't say the same for 2004.
I just think there's not the hatred for McCain that people held for Bush. I just hope turnout for us trumps fraud for them.
Me neither on VA and CO. Concerning IA and NM, McCain/Palin are visiting both states this week.
But that's exactly what this article is. You can argue he should be doing it more, but I'll argue he and his surrogates have been, but it's of course muted/ignored by the media.
Utterly and completely false. The campaign is still advertising there and visiting there later this week.
John & Cindy McCain are visiting NM this week, too.
Man, how does one even respond to a comment so far removed from reality? Moving on...
Gov. Palin is back in western PA (Beaver, to be exact, northwest of Pittsburgh) tomorrow. She'll be in Melissa Hart's district. Murtha has not helped Obama by calling western PA racists and rednecks. Word is Bill Russell (Murtha's opponent) was down 14 points before Murtha shot off his mouth twice over the past week. The key number there is Murtha was unable to break 50%. Russell still had relatively poor name recognition. But today he'll be on Hannity's radio show (Hannity didn't even know his name yesterday), as well as Hannity and Colmes.
So could Russell win? Sure. I'd still have to rate him an underdog. But the way things are going PA is poised to potentially deliver about 4 or 5 House seats back to the Pubbies, while simultaneously destroying the Obamessiah's hopes for the White House.
Never say never, but McCain’s chances of flipping Pennsylvania, with the current Obama +11.4, is between nill and none. The last time a poll was for McCain was Rasmussen 04/24 = McCain +1. The last month, the polling forward momentum indicators continue to increase for Obuma.
TAB
Obama’s internals, which were leaked last week, showed Obama up by 2.
I have read this, if it is accurate, but remember Bill Clinton’s internals, the night before the 1992 election said he was going to lose and he handed H.W. Bush an EC beating the next day. Plus don’t under estimate the power of Ed Rendell and his Democrats-Soros Shadow Party Pennsylvania Klan. Hope I/we are dead wrong on this, but it doesn’t look good. The poll trends are not turning in Penn, like we have been able to do here in Florida for McCain in the last week. FYI, John will be stumping here tomorrow.
TAB
In ‘92 undecideds broke for Bush. Most of his victory was due to Perot. Not sure it’s comparable.
“...since Democrat John Kerry won the state by only 140,000 votes, McCain “needs to flip” only 2,000 votes in each the state’s 67 counties.”
He needs another 2,000 in each county to counter the ACORN effect.
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