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.
ACORN
A wishy washy candidate.
ACORN!
Fox News was showing how the only demographic in PA that went for McCain was white Catholics, and that was just by a relatively small margin. Still don’t understand how over 40% of Catholics could defy a majority of American bishops and vote for someone who openly favors baby killing, but that’s another story I suppose...
BTW, did Murtha win?
Personally, I think a lot of conservative voters were so disgusted after the bailout mess that they simply chose to stay home. They didn’t have a dog in this race.
voter fraud, remember that cnn video of the guy saying he voted multiple times already
Yes, Murtha won comfortably.
We’re only sorry about the results. We still appreciate YOU.
Yes, Murtha won big.
Pennsylvanians apparently have no pride.
It okay, HJ. A lot of us didn’t buy the polls.
Yeah. We put a double whammy on the troops tonight.
hang in there pal. we all got our ass kicked today. go to sleep. we’ve got bigger problems than a lost election or a bad prediction. this nation is in mortal danger from enemies foreign and domestic. i’m now going to take my own advice and go to bed. it’s been a long night for all of us. later.
Yeah, I made the same prediction to my lib relatives, they thought I was nuts, and I guess I was.
Really surprises me. I am wondering whether the Pennsylvania I had in mind is not the Pennsylvania that I knew, but then I realize that with all the other factors going on (Bush, bailout), I’m thinking this was more of a “throw the bastards out” vote rather than an endorsement of Obama.
Four years from now, we’ll see how PA responds.
Hopefully by then I’ll be back living in the state and can help the tallies. :)
recriminations are useless at this point.
You were in the fight and it appears after ‘06 and ‘08 that we have some real uphill climbs to ever see PA in the right column again.
None of that is your fault and apparently it’s creeping all over the country.
Sorry guys, but the voter fraud or conservative turnout not happening just doesn’t add up too heavily based on the numbers. I’m sure there was fraud, there is always some, but nothing to indicate it was more or less than any time in the past.
Total election turnout was down only 120,000 votes across the state from ‘04, so there could have been some republcan depression, but not a whole lot and certainly not 600K votes plus worth. 3rd parties did get about 60,000 votes in 08 vs 33,000 in 04, with Nader getting the Bulk this time and Barr getting about 18k.
Yeh..Fat Jack won...his mindless racist redneck constituents voted his lard arse back in in spite of his ridiculing them. Well they deserve him.
I’m not mad at the people who put out the projections... *any* of you.
I AM mad at the LIEbral media who covered for BO for the last two years. I AM mad at the selfish, ignorant sheeple who voted for the flimsy “hope and change”, ignored all the warning signs and threw the entire nation under the bus.
Ehh...dude...McCain was a longshot to begin with, PA was just as good a place to roll the dice as MI was, this was the payback Election for 8yrs of GWB.
Add in 700 million bucks, MSM media fawning and a Nominee that most Conservatives viewed as what ends up in the cat litter box and it does not take Betty Crocker to figure out what happened.
Not your fault my man, if Mac had tried the same thing in MI,WI or MN, the same result would have happened.
Many Catholics are so badly taught today, it’s probably not surprising.
Maybe a round of nice excommunications would be helpful.
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