Sen. John McCain making a new push in his state, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) "has sent two separate memos to the Obama campaign in the past five days requesting that the Democratic Presidential candidate -- as well as Hillary and Bill Clinton -- return to campaign in Pennsylvania,"
Ed Rendell is scared. He is seeing what Murtha calling his constituents "rednecks" and "racists" has done. He is worried about bitter clingers.
Don't believe the hype. This race is close. The internals are showing that. SOB's own Dave Stacy has the scoop:
Alternate Title #1: Why the Democrats are still very nervous.
Alternate title #2: Why John McCain is touring PA today.
RCP is THE must-have resource for any election and this one is no different. While I've been keeping a sharp eye on the state polling, it's just about time to take a very close look at the state polling over and above the national numbers. And they yield some very interesting data about the state of the race.
These are all states that John McCain must win, there are about seven. These were all Bush states in 2004 and it's already looking like a sure bet he's going to lose smaller Bush states Iowa and NM, He can afford those, he can't afford any of these really. Here's the numbers. From Last week to this week, this is all John McCain's perspective, so -2 is a state he's losing by two.
State today's margin (last week's margin) movement
FL -2 (-5) +3
OH -2.8 (-3.4) + 0.6
NV -2.9 (-2.3) + 0.6
NC -1.5 (-1) - 0.5
MO -2.2 (-2.7) - 0.5
CO -5 (-5.5) - 0.5
VA -8 (-6.5) - 1.5
Since these are all red states, it goes without saying that this moves a horrendous map into merely bad, but hey an improvements an improvement!
So it looks like he's pulling FL, OH back from the brink (both states have recent polling showing him in the lead). NV and NC, and MO he is within the margin of error. CO and VA he's losing badly and they even look like they might be pulling away.
But then we look at Pennsylvania.
PA -11 (-13.4) +2
McCain/Palin have continued to pour money time and resources into PA despite a three week period where it looked like he was losing it by double digits, leaving everyone scratching their heads. But morning call has shown some movement to McCain by 3 points, and Susquehanna had a single digit loss for him, which pulls PA into where VA is now.
And then there was this today:
Steve Corbett, a radio talk show host in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, accidentally received a copy of an internal email sent by Grant Olin who heads the Wilkes-Barre headquarters of the Obama campaign. The email went to 627 Obama campaign volunteers in the Wilkes-Barre Scranton region, saying that Obama Headquarters reported an internal poll which shows that Obama is only 2 points up in Pennsylvania.
Sean Smith, who is heading Obama's Pennsylvania campaign, was interviewed by Steve Corbett via phone at 5:35 today to discuss this. He said that Grant "went rogue", and aknowledged that Grant was "reprimanded" for this.
McCain has his own internals too. And if they are telling him the same thing, well that would go a long way to explaining why McCain was in PA today and why both he and Sarah Palin have spent a lot of time this week. Basically if McCain can get the states that are within the MOE, plus steal PA, then he doesn't need CO or VA
And a win is a win. I doubt this is their preferred strategy, I think they would like to see the numbers get better in VA and CO as those are historically better states than PA for Republicans (duh). But look at this as plan B and it makes sense
Don't believe the Riefenstahl media....
