Posted on 12/04/2011 6:35:53 PM PST by Kaslin
The Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe on Third Avenue is one of those places where men who want to be president stop to look decidedly un-presidential.
Al Gore visited the shop; so did John Kerry. President Barack Obama opted for ice cream instead and went to the Windmill, eight miles up the road.
“It is where you take them to make candidates look authentic,” explained a Democrat strategist who routinely works on presidential campaigns in the Keystone State.
After orchestrating three statewide presidential wins, the strategist said he is sitting out this cycle. He doesn’t see Obama winning Pennsylvania in 2012.
Life is different here in Beaver County: The bill for three chilidogs with “the works,” large fries and a large vanilla milkshake was just over $8. Outside, a steady stream of hunters, families and other locals lingered after the Thanksgiving holiday, enjoying the unseasonable warmth.
Beaver County has long been a stronghold for Democrats. Traditionally, everything along the rivers where industry used to boom is more Democrat; the farther you get from the rivers, the more conservative the voters – yet even the conservatives are registered to vote as Democrats.
Their preferences changed dramatically in 2008 when Republican John McCain beat Obama here. Until then, the last Republican presidential candidate to win the county was Richard Nixon.
That trend solidified when the much more conservative Pat Toomey, a Republican, beat former congressman Joe Sestak, a Democrat, for a U.S. Senate seat.
Hard to imagine that a Democrat could lose Pennsylvania in a presidential election, especially one who won it just three years ago by nearly 10 percentage points.
Never mind that Republicans swept the state in last year’s midterm election, taking a majority of U.S. House seats, a U.S. Senate seat, both chambers of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion – Pennsylvania is still 4 percent more “Democrat” than her Midwestern counterparts.
The latest survey from liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling showed 59 percent of white voters in Pennsylvania disapprove of Obama’s job performance, a rate usually found among Southern voters.
Sean Trende, a numbers analyst for RealClearPolitics, said that while the president could write off Pennsylvania and win, it would be difficult. “The key would be holding the Bush states he won in the Mountain West – Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, plus Virginia and North Carolina,” he said.
That electoral-college path gives him 280 electoral votes and assumes he will lose Indiana and Ohio, which he almost certainly would if he loses Pennsylvania.
The president’s main problem in Pennsylvania is downscale whites, said Trende: “The white working class has never been crazy about this president, and really only came on board with the collapse of the stock market in September of 2008.”
It has nothing to do with race. “He called them ‘bitter,’ ” Trende said – and they have never forgotten that.
If Obama writes off Pennsylvania, he’s basically conceding he can’t win the Pittsburgh area outside Allegheny County and is running poorly in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area.
“In the long run, the Philly suburbs can conceivably provide enough votes to overcome this,” Trende said, although he hasn’t seen evidence of that yet.
Without a collapsing economy to remind these voters why they’re still Democrats, they will vote Republican. Indeed, a just-stagnant economy on a Democrat’s watch doesn’t help.
Six weeks ago, Obama visited Pittsburgh. The union crowd was thin. Enthusiasm was nonexistent; so were local elected Democrats, who opted to shake his hand at the airport rather than stand on stage with him while he talked about jobs.
Last week he went to Scranton, home to Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey. A no-show in Pittsburgh, Casey again declined to appear with the president.
Like Pittsburgh’s congressional Democrats, the freshman senator faces a tough re-election campaign next year.
In off-year elections last month, Republicans increased their control of Pennsylvania counties by 12, giving 52 of 67 counties to the GOP. Most of those gains were in Northeastern or Western Pennsylvania, home to Scranton and Pittsburgh, respectively.
Heading north along State Route 51 into Allegheny County, a faded Hillary-for-president sign straddles a closed business and a yard. Duct-tape appears to be still holding it in place.
He called them that before the election.
“A no-show in Pittsburgh, Casey again declined to appear with the president.”
I sure hope Pennsylvanians are not dumb enough to fall for this trick.
But what ground my gears in that NY Slimes piece was the talk of Obama counting on "the intellectual class." In this piece, they are represented by the affluent Philadelphia suburbs (some of them are actually Republican).
But how is it that our "intellectual class" can't grasp that endless deficit spending on entitlements can't work in the long run?-- or that excessive regulation hurts business growth?
A bitter residue that can be described as a clinger, perhaps?
But how is it that our “intellectual class” can’t grasp that endless deficit spending on entitlements can’t work in the long run?— or that excessive regulation hurts business growth?
They don’t care about that. They are professional politicians. What they care about is their own job. The real question is why the voters can’t grasp it, but maybe after 4 years of Obama, that will change.
Kind of sad, really, that a party has candidates that it has to make “Look Authentic”.
Back in the day most candidates WERE authentic.
I live close to Pittsburgh. Two things that are true; a lot of Dems are fed up with Obama, and there will be more voter fraud in Philly and the Burgh next election than ever. And that’s saying a lot.
Sounds like the people in the Burgh are starting to wake up. Off all places they should be the ones to lead a conservative surge considering what the current liberal administration has done to them.
Non-sequitur. The collapsing economy is the FAULT of the Democrats.
There is no denying it
I believe the “Intellectual “ class they are speaking of are the Socialist, Communist pseudo- and for real Intellectuals that have fallen for the Communist line of everyone sharing the wealth. They forget that even communists do not share the wealth, there are those who live in comfort and those who do the work.
These professors and the foolish children who think they are all growed up, that they have fooled into being part of this “Occupy” scam are the Obama voters.
I know maybe one or two people that still like Obama here in Pittsburgh. But come next Nov, you can bet the old mill hunks will pull the dummycrat lever. I just can for the life of me not figure out why they do that?
Because these intellectual elites are really stupid.
Barack Obama quote: Bitter Pennsylvanians “Cling to Guns or Religion.”
The Dems have long viewed the working class with contempt.
I saw that title and so badly wanted to start making Sandusky jokes. Too soon?
The professional classes that include teachers, city state and govt workers, and health workers, will continue to push the western PA suburbs to blue. Add postal workers to that list because of the increasing anti-Post Office rhetoric of the Republican party and Mr. Issa and his anti-postal bill. Just a thought.
Obama's handlers seem to think they can write off the "cracker" vote and still win--maybe they expect to increase their level of enthusiasm among their other constituencies by showing contempt for white "downscale" voters (especially males).
Obama probably skipped the hot dog place because the meat wasn't halal.
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