Posted on 10/25/2008 6:33:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
The latest round of polls from the very reliable Strategic Survey shows John McCain ahead of Barack Obama in Ohio and Florida, but behind by seven points in Pennsylvania. McCain is likely to lose formerly red states Iowa and New Mexico, may pick up New Hampshire, and is battling for Colorado to the finish. With ten days left and the markets continuing their extraordinary volatility, voters' stomachs are churning and the country is at a decisive crossroads. Obama represents a huge, very sharp turn left. Will the voters reconsider, especially the "racist rednecks" of Pennsylvania?
Democratic icon Congressman Jack Murtha first smeared western Pennsylvania as "racist" last week, and then apologized and downgraded the land to merely "redneck." Obama's famous categorization of Keystone State voters as "bitter" and "clinging to guns and God" hasn't been forgotten either, or the fact that is was delivered to his San Francisco pals. This is Steelers country, and straight-ahead football fans don't much appreciate either the trash talk or the duplicity of saying one thing behind closed doors and another when visiting the state. (But do be sure to send any PA voter you know a link to "Redneck Date" as a reminder of the Obama/Murtha view of their culture!)
As a lifelong Browns fan from northeastern Ohio --seven miles from Sharon, PA-- I can say with confidence that there is no worse football enemy than a Steelers fan. They don't forget anything, and there's a lot a Browns fan would like to forget from the last quarter-century of Browns-Steelers match-ups.
They aren't going to forget the contempt in which they are held by Democratic Party elites on both coasts. So the door is open to John McCain.
And Joe the Plumber is helping the old aviator through it.
Joe's probably a Browns fan, but his suspicion of Obama's "spread the wealth" philosophy is deeply rooted in the industrial Midwest. When people work as hard as they do in Ohio and Pennsylvania only to be told that success has to be penalized in order to ship wealth to those who haven't been working, well, that's not a winning pitch. The migration of jobs from the industrial areas of Ohio and Pennsylvania and of course Michigan has been real, has gone on for 30 years, and has been difficult to watch must less live through.
But the resiliency of the region is extraordinary, and the rebirths of the cities of Cleveland and Pittsburgh marvelous. Eventually the high-tech community is going to figure out that industrial infrastructure and very inexpensive but excellent housing and a wonderful quality of life (with snow) is to be had on the north coast, and like Google's "snazzy new digs" in Ann Arbor , other companies will take advantage of the opportunities in the region.
Provided, that is, that there is economic growth generally, and that capital is available for expansion and innovation. A stagnant or declining economy won't allow the vast engines of economic renewal to continue the amazing growth that has marked America since Reagan's tax cuts of 1981.
This is McCain's closing argument, in PA and throughout all the battleground states: The American economy is a behemoth of progress, an extraordinary engine of progress and prosperity if it is left to work its magic. The confiscatory taxes and trade barriers pushed by Barack Obama are economy killers --and there is no doubt about this! The record of a quarter century tells us that economic growth cannot be taxed into existence, and that "spreading the wealth" decreases sharply the amount of wealth available to spread.
We are in a recession. A McCain victory means a short and shallow recession. An Obama win means a long and perhaps deep decline in economic activity.
If your retirement plan has plummeted and you want your money back.
If you suspect your home is worth less than it was in September and you want the old value back.
If you wonder what careers will be open to your children and your grandchildren, and whether the country's military and national government will work to keep those children and grandchildren safe, and you want assurances on both counts.
The you have to vote for John McCain.
GO McCain!!!
Huckabee is still sore because he didn’t get the nomination
Too bad we cannot boycott Google too! It’s awfully tough to get around those guys.
Google, according to the cited article, got a “tax break deal” to settle in Michigan.
How can this be? I thought Google and their ilk were all in favor of higher taxes. Or “spreading the wealth around”.
The liberal mantra of “higher taxes for thee, but not for me”...
Beautiful, Rose. Thanks and God Bless you, too.
Of course they are for higher taxes, how can you doubt that. For everyone else but for them.
Try www.clusty.com
The "racist rednecks" (read conservative, pro-gun, pro-life, Reagan Democrats) from W PA will vote for McCain, but there are not enough voters in the counties surrounding P'burgh combined with the "T" (the traditional Republican voters in rural areas across the top counties in the state, plus the strip down the middle) to counteract the inner-city fraud in Philadelphia combined with the formerly Republicrat suburbs that only vote for Specter-type RINOs or Democrats, not for conservatives like Santorum or Palin.
It’s all about PA now.
In a perverse way I sometimes hope Obama wins and we get a 60 Dem Senate. The fallout from four years of that will run the Dems out of office for the next 30 years. The damage they will do -- esp. in national defense -- may take longer to correct.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Fox just can’t get enough of the Huckster and his sour grapes and expert political analysis (rolling eyes). I’ve turned him off since he emerged on the scene back in the primaries.
On the economic front you are correct.
But on the defense side, we could pass the point of no return. A pacifist Obama regime would allow rogue terror states to get nukes. That can’t be undone with a new President or Congress in four years.
mark
Don’t you love how some of these pundits know more then the McCain campaign with their internals. Still predicting white flight from Obama to McCain even in Philly. No walking around money this time in Philly with a Governor that is not out campaigning for Obama. Only thing he seems to care about is losing those Congressional seats that are pretty close right now.
Freepers — get out of the doom and gloom mode. Only two of the candidates that ran for President are totally upbeat about Senator McCain — Rudy and Fred. The others are sore losers — you could tell it when they spoke at the Convention. Rudy and Fred along with Steve Forbes have been everywhere helping out including Fred’s wife. We have learned who is loyal to the ticket and who is not.
Huckabee and the rest don’t have a clue what is happening inside the campaign! In fact, some of them seem to want McCain to lose.
As for PA, why not? Union workers who have met affirmative action up close and personal are not going to vote for a black. If that is racist so be it but affirmative action sticks in the throat of a lot of whites when someone gets promoted that is not qualified over someone who is totally qualified. How about getting a scholarship to college because of race when white parents have to foot the bill?
You can go on and on and when it comes down to going in the voting booth — white flight from the Dems to the GOP is going to be the difference maker because Republicans will not vote for a liberal no matter the race except the clowns that pretended to be Republican.
I have to tell you that my unscientific polls of friends and family, most of whom have season tickets to the Steelers, that they are leaning heavily toward Obama. Their hate for Bush is the only lens they see through. Let’s hope they are all liars.
As concerned as I am that America, the PLACE, is in danger, I am far more concerned that America, the IDEA, is on the verge of being devastated in ways the Founders could never have imagined.
My great-great grandfather fought with the 80th Ohio Volunteer Infantry at Chickamauga, Vicksburg and marched to the sea with Sherman. My wife’s great-great grandfather also fought on the Union side. Given the quasi-tyrannical nature of the current central government, we’re both sad that they fought in a struggle to secure Washington’s grip on the states in violation of the VOLUNTARY compact between those states to create that central government in the first instance, the Declaration of Independence.
Now that central government — and the power it has usurped from the states and the people — may be about to fall into the hands of a group of men and women who care even less for those principles than Mr. Lincoln did when he launched one of the deadliest wars in history.
I admit to having many problems with Mr. Lincoln. Forensic historians now view him to have been more motivated by his own internal demons and depression than by a desire to keep together by force a union some voluntary members of which chose to “...alter and to abolish..., and to institute (a) new Government...”
Inasmuch as history is always written by the victor, I recognize this will be totally foreign to those who have not spent time examining that history in detail. But I said all that to lay the basis for this, one of the few things on which a younger, pre-presidency Lincoln and I might agree:
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic giant to step the ocean and crush us at one blow Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.
“At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1837
America, the IDEA, may soon suffer a blow which will render it a small footnote in world history. Given that history IS written by the victors, it might not even be mentioned at all.
I tremble for our grandchildren.
They are----just so long as it's somebody ELSE's wealth.
I just got polled by the NYT/CBS News concerning the election. They said my phone number was randomly selected. It ran about 20 minutes. I answered everything as most FReepers would, but I said I was a conservative Democrat. (I actually answered just like my employer would, who is a conservative Democrat.) They also asked if a reporter could call me or interview me on camera in the future or if I would be willing to be part of an online discussion group, all of which I agreed to. The results of this 4-day poll will be on CBS News Oct. 30, and in the NYT Oct. 31. FReepers got some polling representation finally!
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