Comments on: McCain’s Keys to the Keystone State

By: George Clinton

George Clinton — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 23:03:33 +0000

for those that were following and commenting on the discussion but may not be from Pa. here are the final numbers: I predicted that Obama(see earlier post) would win with 3.1 million with a 70% turnout. Obama got closer to 3.2 million with a 67% turnout. Mc Cain ended up with 2.6 million. And the polls were right it was a 10 point margin not something I predicted. The difference here was the size of the victories coming out of Philly and the suburbs. HJ thought that Kerry would outperform Obama. Kerry won Philly by 414,000, Obama won by 468,000. His margin in the burbs was not Kerry’s 100,000 but over 150,000 and as I predicted Obama was the first D to win Chester county. In Allegheny Kerry won by about 50,000 Obama won by 98,000. And he didn’t get clobbered in the conservative R and D counties. One of the counties Ari visited was Fayette (Uniontown) where he thought the D’s would overwhelmingly vote for McCain, in fact McCain only won Fayette by 160 votes. Usually to counter the D areas the R has to win big in places like Lancaster County. Pres. Bush won Lancaster 66% to 34% but McCain only won 55% to 44%. With those kind of problems for McCain and the ground operation Obama had there was no way McCain could win.

By: George Clinton

George Clinton — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:31:20 +0000

HJ – No numbers prediction?

By: HamiltonJay

HamiltonJay — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:14:30 +0000

Trust me, 20-25k in downtown pittsburgh at the civic ARENA in this “superstar” campaign is not a good showing. The numbers were not 5,000 for Palin, double it and you have reality. Southside is a trolly ride, or 15 min walk, Arena is 5 minutes from town. You are comparing apples and oranges.

Here are the numbers, Hillary got 1.2 Million votes, Fauxbama will not get about 30% of those votes, or about 360,000 votes. That doesn’t even get into the dems who didn’t vote in the primary but will cross the isle for mcCain. The suburban philly counties are break even, last time Kerry had them by 100k. Even if Fauxbama gets another 100,000 votes out of Philly that Kerry managed, he still loses, hes only countered the suburbs hes lost.

Fauxbamas support in PA is not nearly what Kerry’s was, and kerry barely held on. Fauxbama will not only lose PA, he’s going to lose it by more than Kerry or Gore won it. Not only this, but the problems that Fauxbama has in PA are not unique to PA, he’s got the same problem in the other rust belt states, and will lose at least 1 more of them that Kerry had.

By: HamiltonJay

HamiltonJay — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:07:19 +0000

Trust me, I’m on the ground here, what you are hearing in the national media and by pundents is completely incorrect. Not only is McCain taking PA, but the problems he has here are problems he’s having across the rust belt. McCain is taking PA, and at least 1 more rust belt state tommorrow.

PA is not only going McCain, but McCain will be taking the state by a larger margin than Kerry or Gore did.

By: JimCap

JimCap — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:01:52 +0000

Hamilton Jay,

I’d love to believe you, buddy, but it’s not what I’m seeing and hearing. I can’t find one single, solitary poll in PA that shows McCain even within four points of BHO. Some even show him behind by double digits!

And if it was just about the polls, I might be skeptical. But it’s not. My best friend from college lives outside of New Hope. He said it’s over if what he’s seeing is true. He’s seeing way more BHO signs than Bush and Kerry signs combined from four years back.

And my old girlfriend, who is from small town western PA—with a solid Republican family that isn’t above making occasional “N-Word” jokes—said she’s now voting for BHO (I screamed at her on the phone) and that her mother and sister are too! (Her dad and brother, who love to hunt, are sticking with McCain but even they admit that they don’t like him that much.) She also said that lots of people who voted for Hillary and swore they’d never vote for BHO are now changing their mind because they’re scared about McCain possibly going after their SS and medicare.

So, these are just anecdotes, but these people are ones who would normally be 100% for ANY Republican. I wish McCain wouldn’t be putting so much emphasis on PA. It’s not a good return on investment. He should have been concentrating completely on just holding Bush’s states from 2004. PA is way too much of a long shot. Michigan might have been even better.

By: George Clinton

George Clinton — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:30:33 +0000

HJ – there are 8.7 million voters registered as of 10/31/08 and in the last 2 weeks of registration there were 75,000 new d’s to 28,000 new r’s. It seems to reason that people’s registration preference would reflect their vote preference. Just a couple of observations since you keep comparing Obama to Kerry, in 2004 at the Pittsburgh Kerry rally the weekend before the election at about 8pm on the southside Kerry had about 6500 people so if Obama had 20k to 25k that’s a pretty good indicator of the enthusiasm and at the Palin rally according to the right wing Beaver Times Palin had about 5k, pretty good for an R in a 2 to 1 Dem. county. Finally one anecdotal story. I was in Dickson City(near Scranton) at the Super K-Mart and saw 2 older white women(one of Obama’s problem groups according to polls) wearing Obama buttons. But here’s a challenge since you seem to be a numbers guy like myself I’m going to put my best guess here vote percentage and turnout, I’d like to see the same from you. Election night Obama 50% McCain 47% Nader 1% Barr 2% with a turnout of 70% Obama’s total about 3.1 million votes.

By: Marc Malone

Marc Malone — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:24:49 +0000

Andrew – Good point!

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:44:12 +0000

Another well articulated and entertaining piece by Mr. Kaufman. For those in the comments who disagree with Kaufman, be careful not to confuse your own personal beliefs with the reliability of fact. Kaufman bases his opinions and arguments on fact and consequently, his analysis holds more weight. While it may not turn out the way Kaufman would like, one cannot dismiss the facts Kaufman has laid before us.

It’s a shame that articles like this–articles, which show respect to the field of journalism by presenting actual facts and are simultaneously entertaining/well written–are so few and far between…

By: nlcatter

nlcatter — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:14:06 +0000

MORONS
the polls in NH included INDys that could vote in either primary!

By: Jerry Cohen

Jerry Cohen — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:14:13 +0000

To all those despondent over so many bogus polls, recall the New Hampshire Primary. The day before the voting, RCP’s average was an Obama lead over Hillary by 8.3%. Rasmussen had Obama up by 7, CNN by 9, and Zogby (who predicted in 2004 that Kerry would capture 311 electoral votes)had Obama up by an incredible 42-29 spread.

And, lo and behold, Hillary still won.

To use a football analogy, the Republicans control their own destiny. Think about it, a nation that is basically Center-Right does not suddenly shift to the radical Left.

Not unless (to paraphrase Burke)enough good people sit back and do nothing.

So to all good people who value freedom, go to http://www.JohnMcCain.com and volunteer to call battleground states. Undecideds WILL go for McCain–if they bother to vote. Let’s give them a call.