And on John McCain’s mind, too:
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…
It must be kept in mind that when the pollsters set their demographic models for 2008 the story line was “almost certain Democrat victory”, and thus the number of Democrats polled is probably pushed up much higher than it normally would be, and GOPers in the polls are lower than they normally would be. Had this election shaped up as everyone expected, this probably would not have been a problem, but the race has not wound up where everyone thought it would be. At best, Obama has a small lead nationally while the battle for 270 electoral votes is even closer than the national polling – and that is only if the demographic model still works out for very much higher Democrat, lower GOP turnout…with Palin energizing the GOP base and McCain doing very well among Independents – and, also, getting them energized to vote – the demographic models for 2008 could be very much off…and the actual state of the race entirely unknown at this point.
To us, that is.
For McCain and Obama, its a bit different – they do their own polling and that polling might be better geared to the eventual turnout, and thus far more accurate than the polling we see in the MSM. What this means is that McCain is either the biggest fool ever for spending time in PA, or he just knows some things we don’t and is capitalizing on the big chance. Adding to this supposition is, of course, the “Bitter Effect” joined to the “Murtha Effect” in western PA – Obama and then Murtha gave Hillary Democrats all the excuse they need to turn out for McCain…we’ll see how that comes out, but I say to McCain, “pour it on in PA” and “have another look at Michigan”.
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