I'm real close to geographic dead center in the state.
Have a small woodcrafting business that Ø's economic blitzkrieg has just about destroyed .. and am right on the edge of being too old to be hired by anyone for anything else.
Anyway, here's my take/hope on PA's chances in November:
For your consideration, here are four reasons that, acting in concert, will cause Pennsylvania to go R this election, imho:
1) Our new Voter ID law IS going to have an impact. No one with any sense assumes it will completely stop the fraud/theft, but barring wholesale (criminal) non-compliance at the polls, it should negate several tens of thousands of bogus ballots.
2) PA's nascent energy boom, having brought much good employment/wages to rural areas that previously offered few opportunities, and with more hiring to follow, is under threat of attack by the marxist watermelons in particular, and Ø's anti-business regime generally. Folks who've finally found some work that pays worth a damn, knowing the Dhimms will try to take it away from them, should be turning out in droves with their votes to see that that doesn't happen.
3) Gas prices are once again within spitting distance of $4/gal as a result of Ø's deliberate Luddite attack on our energy industries. Not only are peoples' wallets being raped when filling their vehicles, the winter heating season will soon be ushering in concomitantly absurd bills for heating oil and electrity. Coupled with grocery prices spiraling ever upward as a result of artificially usurious energy costs, folks bringing in less than $100k/yr are being slowly strangled, while those trying to make do with less are effectively being written off. Political maxim #1 = it's the ECONOMY !
4) Though things have yet to reach quite the levels of anarchy currently present in Chicago, American citizens in PA's urban areas are doubtless feeling the fear and outrage caused by Ø's tacitly condoning the untouchable entitlement attitudes and general lawlessness of feral urban barbarians, overwhelmingly of the black variety. In the part of their minds that hold those things that are thought about as rarely as possible, most rational people know that there's very likely a big storm coming, and that there's no way the cops will be able to deal with it. They also know that, while things weren't rosy, the situation four years ago seemed much less dire. Average moms and dads don't like to be made to think those thoughts and feel those fears in a state that used to be a reasonably safe place to raise their kids. And in that same seldom-visited mind corner lurks the dark realization that, given the enormous disparity in numbers between city cops and bangers, if widespread urban violence/rioting breaks out following this election, it will almost necessarily have to be met with massive and deadly citizen resistance - which means THEM - if their families and property are to be protected.
Given all the above, and with a moderate PR drive by the R/R team to crystallize what's at stake, Pennsylvania should deliver 20 EVs to the saner side of the equation this year.
Finally.
Hi neighbor, Excellent comments. The problem is the Southeast (Philly) and the Southwest(Pittsburgh). If we could get rid of them we would have a pretty good state!
If the presidential election were held today, which candidate would get your vote?
47% Barack Obama
53% Mitt Romney
As of 11 PM in the East Tuesday night.