Posted on 11/02/2008 3:42:11 AM PST by Born Conservative
For more than two weeks, John McCain, Sarah Palin and a variety of their campaign surrogates have devoted much of their attention and limited resources toward turning the Keystone State red for the first time since 1988.
But with the Republican presidential nominee due in Scranton again today, most recent independent polls have shown Democratic nominee Barack Obama ahead by double digits (a few polls show a tighter race).
It may be that the McCain campaign thinks there’s something about the state’s mix of rural voters, working-class whites and culturally conservative Democrats that gives it a chance invisible to pollsters.
“There is no other reason for John McCain and Sarah Palin to be in the state based on what the polls say, except that they’re counting on us to be bigots,” said former Scranton Mayor James McNulty, a Democrat. “Why else are they here? They’re counting on Pennsylvania not voting for a black man.”
Ridiculous, says Republican Lackawanna County Commissioner A.J. Munchak.
“He forgets that we were labeled bitter and hanging on to our guns and our Bibles,” Mr. Munchak said. “I don’t believe the polls. I honestly don’t believe the polls. I think a lot of people, when asked, are afraid to say they’re voting against Obama because people will put that (racist) label on them ... I think it’s a lot closer than Mr. McNulty thinks.”
Whether they believe the polls or not, Mr. McCain’s campaign appears to have decided that there’s no reasonable path to victory without Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes.
Pennsylvania is a must-win for Mr. McCain, and it may be his last stand.
Polls consistent
The McCain campaign pulled out of Michigan in early October and trails, by polling, in many states that President Bush carried in 2004.
Facing an electoral map with shrinking battlefronts, his campaign has thrown much of its remaining resources at Pennsylvania in an effort to offset other potential losses.
Whether it’s working is highly debatable.
For weeks, polling of state voters has overwhelmingly favored Mr. Obama.
The daily tracking poll by Muhlenberg College in conjunction with the Allentown Morning Call newspaper has had Mr. Obama ahead by 10 points or more since Oct. 3, with Mr. Obama at 53 percent as of Thursday night and Mr. McCain at 43 percent, his peak. Mr. Obama’s support has been no lower than 52 percent since Oct. 15 while Mr. McCain’s has been as low as 37 percent.
Five other polls this week had the spread at between 9 and 14 points in Pennsylvania, including a 12-point edge in Quinnipiac University poll and a 13-point edge in a Franklin & Marshall College poll.
But there is a faint silver lining for Republicans who are looking for it.
The 10-point margin in the latest Muhlenberg poll was 3 percentage points narrower than the night before, and at least two other polls this week had the race much closer.
An NBC Mason-Dixon poll had it at 47 percent to 43 percent for Mr. Obama.
Atlanta-based Strategic Vision LLC, had Mr. Obama at 49 percent and Mr. McCain at 44 percent in a poll released Friday. The poll surveyed 1,200 likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Strategic Vision president David Johnson said the race had tightened among white female voters in the Philadelphia suburbs, always a key to winning the state.
Obama focuses elsewhere
As Mr. McCain and his campaign have blanketed the state, Mr. Obama has paid only occasionally visits, a sure sign he thinks polls are running in his favor here. It has allowed him to concentrate on reliably Republican states he thinks he can win, such as Virginia and Colorado.
Though he did visit Pittsburgh on Monday and the Philadelphia suburbs on Tuesday, Mr. Obama has left most of the campaigning in Pennsylvania to surrogates, including his running mate Sen. Joseph Biden, who was in Williamsport and Allentown on Thursday and is expected back at least once more.
Mr. McCain will be in Scranton today, while Mr. Obama will be represented here by Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, revered locally by Democrats.
Christopher Borick, Ph.D., the director of the Muhlenberg poll that has shown consistent double-digit Obama leads, said he doubts the polls that show Mr. Obama ahead by only 4 or 5 points.
Mr. McCain can still win the state, but his path is narrower, he said.
If turnout expectations for young and minority voters fall short, if the McCain campaign carries out an exceptionally good get-out-the-vote effort, if white and elderly voters suddenly turn squeamish about Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain “can make this close,” he said.
“It’s got to be like a perfect game, though,” Dr. Borick said.
Democrats have won the state the last four times and now outnumber Republicans by 1.1 million voters, double the margin in 2004.
That, more than anything, illustrates how difficult it will be for Mr. McCain to win.
I’m biased against Socialists, Muslims, and liberal thugs.
Agree all Americans are too.
I just heard it, and sent the link to a local radio host who is a “left wing radical”, but is Pro-McCain/Palin. He also has emailed the PA Obama Communications Director for a reply re: Biden’s remark that he’s a “hard coal miner”, when he never was. That’s gotta hurt Obama/Biden in the coal regions of Northeast PA; that tape would hurt even WORSE.
I posted the tape here: http://bohicaville.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/audio-obamas-plan-to-bankrupt-the-coal-industry/
“If it means you are bigot because you refuse to vote for a man who is of muslim descent while we are at war with radical muslims, then I am guilty. I am not one bit sorry either.”
Add me to that number.
I will never vote for a Muslim, of any party, for any office, in my life.
Sorry if that offends anyone.
- John
It’s hishoner that’s playing the race card here.
Great! I haven’t put much faith in the polls up until this point.
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