Wargaming the Electoral College
March 25th, 2008 - 5:10 pm
Some folks point to polls showing that John McCain puts Pennsylvania in play for the Republicans. But one cold hard number ought to disabuse them of that notion:
As the state hit a voter sign-up deadline Monday for upcoming primaries, a top official told CNN that a near-majority of all voters on the rolls are registered as Democrats.
Ouch.
If memory serves, in 1980, there were a boatload of Democrats in Pennsylvania. They ended up voting for a Republican all the same.
I’m not saying McCain is Reagan, but I am saying that its just possible that we will see a Democrat in this race who will redefine the bottom basement for Democrat candidates as somwhere below Dukakis, Carter and Kerry.
Don’t ignore the fact that a LOT of people are registering Dem to keep the Dem fight going and vote for Hillary; Rush Limbaugh has been pushing this pretty hard.
There’s no reason to register as a Republican in Pennsylvania at this point.
“There’s no reason to register as a Republican in Pennsylvania at this point.”
AL is correct. The Dems have an extremely high profile and hotly contested race. The Reps have no race. There’s no way to measure just how much of an effect that actually has but still, I’d be astonished if registrations weren’t leaning strongly toward the donkey and away from Tantor.
Well, I’m smack dab in the middle of PA, and I know about 30 people who have recently registered Dem. I know maybe 100 people total, so take that into consideration…
About 20 of these switchers are independents, libertarians, etc. (like me), who want to finally have a say in who they’ll get to vote for in the big game. And this is for the first time in their lives (I’m 42), so its a novel experience.
It really doesn’t matter what party we’re influencing. We’re just drunk with primary power!
And the other 10 (1/3rd) are hard core Republicans who think they’re somehow mucking things up for the Dems.
Its all good sport, but believe you me, there is no big shift to the left going on here.
And the other 10 (1/3rd) are hard core Republicans who think they’re somehow mucking things up for the Dems.
It’s a pretty simple formula; vote for the one losing so they keep fighting. Kos called for the same thing in Michigan, where the Dem primary meant nothing.
It’s a primary. Who cares. Not the Clinton’s or Obama… when all is said and done, this election (Dem side) will not be decided by voters, but by super-delegates, and they don’t care if people voted to feel relevant.
Besides that, I heard today that 130,000 of those “new Democrat voters” registered are Republicans who will either switch back or sit out.
Another thing I love about dems is their view of the electoral college. A few years ago they wanted it abolished, but now that it works for them, they’re all for it. They’re a party of Antionette’s. They think they can eat their cake and have it too.
I think (like anybody cares) that the dems need to suck this one up. They’ve been influencing the outcome of Republican primaries for years. How do you think we ended up with McCain? And if you think this isn’t mucking things up for the dems, just look at how much money they are having to spend, when one of them should have been crowned by now. I’m all for the chaos!
Pennsylvania is trending Democratic, with a lot of the Philadelphia suburbs transitioning from moderate-to-liberal Republican majorities to parity, or Democratic majorities. That is where the state-wide results will be determined.
The city of Philadelphia is becoming even more strongly Democratic than ever, and if Obama is the nominee there will be a huge turnout in November. Live voters may even outnumber the cemetary turnouts.
In Central Pennsylvania, long a Republican stronghold, there is tepid at best support for McCain as the Republican ticket lead. In 1996 Bob Dole was weak in this region, and that contributed to the size of his loss of the state.
This area is usually behind the curve, so there are still a lot of independents and Republicans interested in this new Obama fellow, the second thoughts have not begun to happen yet.
In November, gun rights may cause a large shift away from the Democrats across much of the state, but probably not enough to put it into the McCain win column, given the many misgivings about the candidate.