The Atlantic - Latest Comments in More on Rendell

Re: More on Rendell

JonF — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:23:49 -0000

I am wondering not just why McCain is focusing on PA, but why he seeems to be concentrating on rural, out-of-the-way venues. Today he was in Defiance Ohio-- that's a very small city in NW Ohio with nothing much anywhere near it (it's about 70 miles from both Toledo and Fort Wayne IN). Are there really that many votes to be had in Defiance OH? Moreover, rural NW Ohio has been voting Republican since Lincoln's day. Those people are (or ought to be) already in McCain's bag. What's he doing there? If he wants to be vote-trolling in NW Ohio he should be in Sylvania or Perrysburg or some other Toledo suburb. For some years now every election has been won or lost in the suburbs. Is there some point to this boondocks strategy that I'm not seeing, or does the campaign already know they've lost the 'burbs?

Re: More on Rendell

BWR — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:07:37 -0000

Maybe Rendell and Murtha have together decided to pull a little trick. "O woe is me, our constituents are such racists. Obama could be in real trouble in Pennsylvania." In other words, "please, please don't throw him into Mr. MacGregor's garden. He's gonna lose!"

McCain gets the message loud and clear, and consequently throws a large chunk of his dwindling assets into a state he's unlikely to win. "But Rendell TOLD me they were racists!"

Meanwhile, Peter Rabbit runs off with all Mr. MacGregor's (er, McCain's) carrots.

Re: More on Rendell

Robert M — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:52:41 -0000

Gov Rendell is a dog whistling SOB. He has never repeat never down anything for the AfricanAmericans in the state of PA except but them in jail when he was the carpetbagging DA from NY. His alliance w/John Street was a farce and if the economy had not been as good as it was during their tenures PA and Philadelphia would be Detroit and Michigan. If he can't find a way to give away money he doesn't do a thing.

Re: More on Rendell

Kevin McNamara — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:35:22 -0000

i'd rather see him trying to pick off GA and affect the senate race, but nothing wrong with nailing down PA and getting media coverage that goes into WV and OH.

Re: More on Rendell

John Henry — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:30:50 -0000

According to Real Clear Politics, Mcain has a solid 157 electoral votes. Let's say we give McCain all the toss ups (FL-27,MT-3,ND-3,IN-11,MO-11) That brings him to 227. There are 52 (NV-5,CO-9,NM-5,OH-20,VA-13) leaning Obama. If McCain runs the table on these it brings him to 279. He's very likely to lose VA and CO. PA-21 would make up for those loses and western PA has an electorate tailor-made for the kinda campaign they are running. There's just not enough votes in W. PA to flip the state. McCain would need to also flip Philly suburbs. Its a long shot, but he does not have many options. It makes strategic sense for Obama to get McCain to focus all his energy on PA and neglect the other battleground states.

Re: More on Rendell

Charles — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:47:31 -0000

gaucho -

While the *current* Michigan polling shows Obama way ahead, you've got to factor in that McCain publicly pulled out of the state, pissing off a lot of Republicans there, plus the fact that he hasn't been running ads, etc. Prior to that, the polling was a lot closer.

Re: More on Rendell

Siryn — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:48:28 -0000

McCain really cannot lose PA, even though Obama can probably afford it. With VA heading Obama's way, and other red states going blue (CO, NM) the path to the presidency is having to run through PA. It is better to keep attacking instead of allowing McCain to get there in PA.

Re: More on Rendell

geg6 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:43:11 -0000

Living in PA and having followed Rendell's career, Ed has no doubt that PA will go for Obama. It was clear to me in that interview that he has no doubt about it (listen to the part, pointed out by others, that worst case scenario is a win by 6 or 7 points.

But...

Ed is doing exactly what the Obama campaign wants: focusing on GOTV. Rendell is right (as is Murtha) that there are a lot of older and lower middle class voters who will have a problem voting for a black man. I know because I live in Beaver County, recently featured on the front page of the NYTimes with racial ignorance proudly on display for the entire country to see and mock. We can't have people like me sitting back thinking we have it in the bag.

Plus, I think there is a lot of merit to the idea that he wants a large part of that GOTV effort to be a help in increasing Dems in the state legislature.

Ed is a brilliant pol who knows his state very, very well. But I know that twinkle in the eye he gets when he's pulling a fast one and he had it in that interview. McPalin are wasting their time, courting votes they would already have had. I hope they keep it up every day until Nov. 4.

Re: More on Rendell

Asher — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:23:04 -0000

Oh, the insidious racism, the soft bigotry of low expectations. Clearly if the guy has any doubts about His Obamaness winning PA, it must be because he doubts His vote-getting power for racial reasons, or, worse yet, because he hates Him for racial reasons. Like come the fuck on. Maybe he has internal polls we don't. Maybe he's just nervous. McCain's basically camped out the past three weeks in the state. You're reading way too much into this. And about this:

"You can count on one hand the number of politicians who managed to change the underlying demographics of the electorate. All the rest won office through a mixture of optimistic projection of their own chances and cynical realism about the nature of the electorate."

Do remember that Rendell's the first Jewish mayor of a half-black city with shaky black-Jewish relations.

Re: More on Rendell

Betty Chambers — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:16:28 -0000

Obama can win without Pennsylvania.

McCain's people pull tactics out of their asses. They dwell on what to do next as deeply as they did with the Palin pick.

I bet there's a big 8 Ball, which they consult for what to do next.

Re: More on Rendell

toby — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:15:18 -0000

If Obama fails to take a state where he led by 12 one week before the election, then he will be in trouble elsewhere too.

He can't afford to get sloppy now. Holding the Kerry states is the core of his strategy. If he doesn't take Pennsylvania, then Ohio, Virginia and Florida must be problematic as well. And if McCain gets Pennsylvania, he can afford to lose Virginia so Obama has a steeper hill to climb.

The paths to the Presidency start to close down for Obama when a big Kerry state like Pennsylvania is lost.

Now, I thought Rendell was cool enough, and Obama is pretty cool-headed as well. I think we can trust Obama to ensure an optimal spread of his influence on wobblers and undecideds.

Re: More on Rendell

Ming — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:00:52 -0000

PA may be more important than we think. Keep in mind that when a candidate is in PA, he's not only reaching the PA market. He's also reaching neighboring states, like Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina. McCain's motto is close to: "it's Appalachia, stupid." PA is interesting in that it has the Appalachian demographic, and also the Jewish demographic. So those are two groups that McCain / Palin can lay the fear / hate / distortions on. If McCain scares the Jews to death (not for any legitimate reason, but I do think he's trying to scare them) and if he motivates the Appalachian contingent, he could take Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina. He doesn't even need Pennsylvania itself, but those neighboring states might just put McCain over the top.

Re: More on Rendell

gaucho — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:40:46 -0000

Charles: Current pollster.com averages show Obama up 16% in Michigan, 11% in Pennsylvania. Add in the fact that Michigan only gets you 17 electoral votes, and Pennsylvania 21; and that Michigan's economy is significantly worse than Pennsylvania's. Tactically, the Pennsylvania gambit is probably the way to go, especially with significantly fewer dollars to throw around than Obama.

Re: More on Rendell

Charles — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:29:06 -0000

Anyone else think McCain made a huge mistake in conceding Michigan? It would make a helluva lot more sense for him to be making his last stand there than in Pennsylvania, esp. with Michigan's long history of racially-polarized voting (worse than probably any other non-Southern state). If he had conceded Pennsylvania and given his all into Michigan, I think people might be a little bit worried.

Re: More on Rendell

James — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:27:02 -0000

Rendell runs the machine in PA. If Pennsylvania ends up close at all, the Republicans will fight and cry voter fraud, launch investigations, etc. They are bound to dig up some dirt on Rendell's tactics. So it's in Rendell's interest to ensure a landslide in PA, in order to avoid any investigations that may unearth more political problems for Rendell.

Re: More on Rendell

TrelJ — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:19:24 -0000

I think the McCain campaign is pinning its electoral hopes in the final stages of this election on the same premise that the Clinton campaign ascribed to. They are counting on the fact that a majority of "uncommitted" voters will not vote for an African-American, especially in states like North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania.

McCain has an unprecedented under-the-radar smear campaign going on right now in these states, with independent groups sending out CD's and mailers to scare the crap out of White or Jewish undecided voters. They are especially confident because this time they have an actual "Arab", "Socialist" black man to target.

The McCain campaign has not run a serious campaign because they have never taken Obama seriously. They treat the Americans supporting Obama as stupid because they think we are stupid to elect Obama to office.

McCain is going to have the hard time looking in the mirror on November 5th because every newspaper in the country will start reminding us how incredibly incompetent his campaign was.

Re: More on Rendell

LonBecker — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:17:09 -0000

Being in PA I have been wondering about this. In the primaries he was trying to make the case for Clinton. Now I think he is just selling his state. The more time Obama spends here the better for PA it is.

Re: More on Rendell

wrb — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:12:12 -0000

It makes sense because Penn is where Hillary did her most nasty smearing. The state is filled with people who believed that Obama is an elitist, believed the absurd Hillary spin on the "bitter" comments, believed that Obama couldn't represent "hard working white people".

McCain is gambling that as a result a lot of Obama's support is soft, and thus it might be easier to move big numbers in Pennsylvania that smaller numbers in places like Colorado.

If Obama loses Penn the blame should go to Hillary's and Rendell's gutter diving.

Re: More on Rendell

Rich — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:11:45 -0000

Why does Rendell focus on the importance of PA? Because he's the governor of PA, not VA or some other state. What the hell do you expect?

Re: More on Rendell

frankie d — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:10:56 -0000

pennsylvania is mccain's ohio.

it is to mccain what ohio was to kerry in '04.

knock him off in pennsylvania and he simply cannot win.

game, set, match.

in a one sense, rendell wants obama to take the challenge and use pennsylvania as the old fashioned joe frazier left hook that puts mccain on the canvas for good.

it's pretty simple in that sense. beat him in pennsylvania and he slinks off with his tail between his legs.

while it is not probable, if mccain can turn any blue state red, it is pennsylvania.

and if obama just ignored the state, as improbable as it might be, it could just happen.

Re: More on Rendell

Andrea — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:02:51 -0000

Also...Rendell knows Obama's gonna do what he's got to do. He knows VA, FL, OH, CO are tighter races, but he's got nothing to lose by amping up the importance of Pennsylvania. Obama's got PA in the bag, but why not keep the mystery alive in the hopes of getting a few last appearances in the last week of the campaign.

Re: More on Rendell

HW — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:01:00 -0000

One potential factor distinguishes PA from a lot of other key states as we go down the stretch: there is no early voting. In numberous other states, there are a lot of votes in the can already. From a strategic perspective, it might be more efficient for McCain to campaign in PA, given the availability of more voters who have yet to vote and the high number of electoral college votes. As McCain gambles here, Obama would need to respond in order to protect his lead. This is not the argument that Rendell made, but this is one plausible argument for why both sides are focusing here.

Also, PA seems to be one of the places where Hillary's presence as the last white candidate standing allowed her to win support of a lot of white, conservative Democrats. I understand the impulse to worry about the middle of PA (I live in Philly), but I basically agree with everyone that Obama will win PA handily.

Re: More on Rendell

Sean Carroll — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:59:48 -0000

Pennsylvania is the largest somewhat-competitive blue state that doesn't allow early voting without an excuse.

http://earlyvoting.net/states/abslaws.php

It probably is McCain's best chance for a late surprise. The fact that it's not anywhere near a good chance just reflects the fact that he has almost no options.

Re: More on Rendell

Doctor Jay — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:53:58 -0000

Think of it this way. There are 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter and McCain's down by 10. If you're the coach, you aren't telling your guys, "Relax, guys, the party's over". But if he doesn't ask Obama for more appearances, that's what he would be saying. It would be like putting in your bench.

Rendell is not responsible for Obama's national strategy. He's responsible for advocating what's best for his state.

Re: More on Rendell

MattF — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:39:32 -0000

It's just the numbers-- if McCain only campaigns in the states where the polls say he has a shot, he'll lose. McCain -has- to go for at least one large state where the polls say he's doomed-- given the choices, Pennsylvania makes the most sense.

The only counter argument that makes sense is for McCain to concede, and give his money to the close Senate races. But that ain't gonna happen.