Posted on 11/04/2008 11:11:57 PM PST by HamiltonJay
I may write on this topic one more time when the final few percentage points of precincts are in and I have a little more time to analyse.
That however will be it, so you can flame away at me all you want.
As most of you know I saw PA falling for McCain, very comfortably, obviously that has not happened. So, I was wrong and I am sorry.
Feel free to yell, kick, scream, flame whatever you wish at me IN THIS THREAD, if that helps you get through the night. Know that I never tried to purposely deceive any of you, but only report what I was seeing. My flaw was it seems not seeing enough of what was going on out east, or that overall turnout in PA was going to be down.
Now, I know that people will rehash this election and the McCain campaign for a long time, for their choice of fighting for PA. I had no influence or no responsibility for the campaign or their decisions, however I can see even now why they fought for PA. Did time and money in PA cost us VA or OH of FL? Perhaps, but given its 1:30 in the morning and MONTANA still hasn't been called I'd say its pretty clear blaming the election loss soley on drawing the line in the sand in PA is rather laughable.
The election is over, and Fauxbama did take PA by what looks to be a 10+ point margin. I found that unbelievable, and still find this shocking to this day. But it happened, the pollsters were right, I was wrong, and as such I eat my humble pie.
I will now explain what I personally saw, and please stick with me, because much of what I personally witnessed happening was true and has been confirmed by the results. WHere I failed was projecting what I was first hand seeing out into other areas of PA I had not been first hand.
I live in the Pittsburgh suburbs, and I noticed trending here that support for Fauxbama was weaker than Kerry, noticably weaker. Annecdotal evidence, but evidence that certainly gave me pause to the notions that Fauxbama was carrying Kerry levels of support. Kerry had squeaked by so I viewed this as a good thing. 144,000 or so votes was all he carried.
Turns out in the results I was right about what I saw, just not remotely right on the projections out.
The following 7 counties make up the Pittsburgh area, here are the final results of this election and the last election for them Percentages.. I have posted real numbers in (Allegheny)Pittsburgh, to illustrate a point I will make following this:
Allegheny: M 41.7(254,000) B 42.1(272,000) F 57.4(350,000) K 57.2(369,000) 96,000 93,000
Fayette: M 49.6% Bush 45.8% F 49.3% Kerry 53.2%
Greene: M 49.5% Bush 50% F 48.9% Kerry 49.3%
Washington: M 51.8% Bush 49.6% F 47% Kerry 50.1%
Beaver: M 50.9% Bush 48.4% F 47.8% Kerry 51.1%
Armstrong: M 61.4% Bush 60.9% F 37.2% Kerry 38.7%
Butler: M 63.1% Bush 64.9% F 35.7% Kerry 35.2%
Westmoreland: M 57.8% Bush 56% F 41.2% Kerry 43.5%
Now as you can tell by these numbers McCain actually outperformed Bush in the majority of these counties, and Fauxbama underperformed Kerry in the majority of these counties. Now yes, these margins were generally not huge, Given the Kerry and Gore victories has been so close this certainly suggested Fauxbama was in trouble, the percentage shifts did not need to be huge to cost the Dem the state, less than 2000 votes per county on average was all it would take.
Obviously he wasn't in trouble he won the state by 642424 votes, a rather big spread over the 144ish that Kerry won by or the 205k that Gore won by. However he didn't gain on that spread in terms of numbers in the Pittsburgh region over Kerry. So what was going on in the pittsburgh region clearly was not reflective of much of the state.
Erie for example went to Fauxbama by 25,000 votes, where is Kerry won it by only 10,000. SO while he was definately having issues here in the Pittsburgh region, he was not having the same issues elsewhere.
So, there you have it, I blew it, and at this late hour, that's about the best I can figure out as to why I blew it so badly.
So, flame away, I'll go eat my crow and humble pie, and get some sleep. This battle has ended with us in solid defeat.. tommorrow the next battle begins.
It seemed to me McCain was wasting his time on PA and should have been campaigning in other states, but it was obvious they weren't going to change their strategy. too bad.
It wasn’t just PA. It was also FL, VA, OH, CO and NV.
We got shelled.
Whatever the lesson is, it is not about small differences in tactics.
We got beat big. We must make big changes in how we do things.
Another victim tonight is American democracy. With he widespread practice of early voting, voting without verification, voting multiple times how can you respect the validity of these results. We have no effective to monior who votes, how many times they vote or even if they are citizens of this country.
I won’t flame anyone that held onto believing McCain was going to win. There is no way 0bama should have won the majority. I have to go to bed. I am still stunned. I am going to not watch the news for several years now. 0bama doesn’t exist in my world. I will tend to my business. When I visit the Free Republic I will stick to the social areas from now on. I simply do not care to live in an 0bama Nation. Thank God, I am in a Red State.
ACORN for starters was much deeper into voter fraud then any of us imagined. Votes didn’t materialize in parts of the state we needed them. Too many Republicans stayed home who were not energized by McCain and saw all the hits against Palin that took their toll.
Host of reasons but maybe this Party has finally learned you cannot give the nomination to someone as a reward like we did to Dole in 1996 (I voted for Phil Gramm in TX) or McCain in 2008.
We need strong candidates that will take on the other side during an election and not reach across the aisle to their opponent and talk about what a nice guy he was and not to be afraid of him.
We need leaders who are not afraid to stand up!
Pennsylvania had an opportunity to send a message to the rest of the country that they care more about the coal industry than party loyalty. They failed. Let Obama bankrupt them for all I care.
Bottom line...Obama had a Ground Game...he beat Hillary with it...and improved upon it with technology and more people for beating McCain! It is about face to face, phone call to phone call...it is about the people...not ads, not front page, not news...it is about connecting...BO did it!
Forgot to add.... here are my extended thoughts.... What is the new Grass Roots movement? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2125428/posts
Can we stop with the Rino’s now and grow a pair?
I have no intention of flaming you. Many of us saw different trends developing than what actually happened. I figured that the voters of PA have been called racist rednecks and the Democrats want to kill the coal industry, surely there will be opposition to this, right? Instead, they proved that no, they’re not bothered by insults and their livelihood being destroyed. It’s not your fault.
I have another comment. Why are we allowing NH and Iowa to pick our candidates for the Republican Party when BOTH states went to the Dems. Time to dump Iowa and NH as first in the Nation IMHO!
Why not Oklahoma? For the FIRST time Oklahoman Republicans control the OK Senate in the history of the State, we kept the OK House, we took back a Corporation Commission seat and kept the other one, returned Sen Inhofe to the Senate, sent back 4/5 House Members, and voted for McCain 66 - 33.
When all those coal miners start whining and crying ‘cause they don’t have a job, I don’t even want to hear it. The “Rust Belt” is the “Rust Belt” for a reason. To paraphrase Rev. Wright, “their chickens will have come home to roost”.
Well, it certainly looks to me that others were right, the economy trumped everything, period.
Sadly it trumped it at a time when this was the candidate the other side had. But enough, off to bed... Sleep well folks, this battle is over, tommorrow we pick up the pieces and start the battle anew.
“I have another comment. Why are we allowing NH and Iowa to pick our candidates for the Republican Party when BOTH states went to the Dems. Time to dump Iowa and NH as first in the Nation IMHO!”
Amen!!! Anybody at the RNC hear that or care????
It’s cool, you just got got up in wishful thinking. Obviously McCain was never close in PA.
Acorn, bailout, that has nothing to do with it. It’s a state that leans rat, period. A rat is winning the country he’s gonna be taking PA.
Obama has been leading for all election except during the Palin bounce.
Two failures tonight ...
Bipartisanship, reaching across the aisle and the nonsense that you ‘capture the center’ that way, big time up in flames. McCain's inherent fault.Compassionate Conservatives, meaning not standing up and fighting for your programs and beliefs, never a winner to make yourself into the opposition's punching bag. Both deader than the doornail. Bush's inherent fault.
Conservatism won ... And lives to fight another day. Crystal clear conservative message that broadcast crystal clear first principles, is the way forward.
Also, I imagine the new dem congress will pass the .18 cent gas tax they thought was a good idea.
Dont feel bad I was telling everyone that the Hillary
votes was going to win it for Mccain,shows you what I
know.I would say we will get them in four years but
hell we may not have a country in four years.!!!!
I’m out west in Utah, but I grew up in southeastern PA back in the days when the Philly suburbs were still reliably Republican. It seems like we were fighting against a rather fierce “perfect storm” of mediascum propaganda, Bush-fatigue, economic mess, Democrat perfidy and fraud, and several other factors.
I have to wonder how many PA voters were even aware of Obama/Biden hostility to the survival of the coal industry, Murtha disparagement of PA voters as racists and rednecks, Obama/Biden extreme left views, etc.
I doubt that the mediascum let that info get through very widely, and probably only people on sites like FR even had much awareness of stuff like that.
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