The Occasional Observer

The dastardly Soren Dayton and the sublime Patrick Ruffini joined up with a few other folks to start a nice new right wing political blog, called TheNextRight. Check it out. I'll link it in the sidebar.

Up on their front page today is an article breaking down why McCain has the opportunity to win Pennsylvania, with the state broken down region-by-region. I'll quote the last couple of regions they mention here:

Northeastern PABush improved his performance in the Scranton area from 2000 to 2004, but still lost the area by a margin of 20,000 votes. If McCain wants to win Pennsylvania, he needs to run at least even in Luzerne County (Scranton) and Lackawanna County (Wilkes-Barre), if not win them. Fortunately for McCain, the Scranton area was a real problem area for Obama in the primary. Obama got 25% in Luzerne County and 26% in Lackawanna County. The Scranton area is one of the premier conservative Democrat areas in America. It may be a tall task for them to warm to Obama.

Southwestern PA

For McCain, the real opportunity could be in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Consider how close a series of counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania were in 2004 and how poory Obama fared in them in the primary:

Mercer County: Bush 51.0% Kerry 48.2%, Clinton 69% Obama 31%

Beaver County: Kerry 51.1% Bush 48.4%, Clinton 70% Obama 30%

Washington County: Kerry 50.1% Bush 49.6%, Clinton 71% Obama 29%

Cambria County: Bush 50.8% Kerry 48.7%, Clinton 72% Obama 28%

Lawrence County: Bush 50.5% Kerry 49.2%, Clinton 74% Obama 26%

Greene County: Bush 50.0% Kerry 49.3%, Clinton 75% Obama 25%

Fayette County: Kerry 53.2% Bush 45.8%, Clinton 79% Obama 21%

When voters select a candidate by a three to one margin, when the two candidates have no real policy disagreements, this has to be interpreted as a rejection of the loser. I believe that all seven of the above counties would vote against Obama. These seven counties casted a total of 409,000 votes in 2004. Even a five point swing in these counties, which would still have Obama winning Fayette County, would represent a swing of 20,000 votes. A ten point swing, which for example would have McCain winning Washington County 55% to 45%, would represent 40,000 votes. By themselves, these counties cannot overturn Democratic control of Pennsylvania. But ripping off nearly a third of what would need to be made up in such a small space would allow McCain to really have a shot in Pennsylvania.

All of these counties except Cambria County are part of the Pittsburgh media market. I live in suburban Pittsburgh and I am encouraged to see that in the past month I have seen a plethora of McCain ads and no Obama ads. Perhaps someone in the McCain campaign understands these figures and realizes that targeting the area surrounding Pittsburgh is vital towards winning the White House. There is the potential for Western Pennsylvania to be among the best swing areas in the entire country for McCain.

There are other important areas for McCain to target, like the Pittsburgh suburbs, the Lehigh Valley, and the Erie area. It is also important to get greater margins in the wide swaths of rural Pennsylvania. But these three areas represent McCain's best chance to take Pennsylvania in the fall. A Democrat has to win Pennsylvania to win the White House. Democrats have lost the presidency while holding Pennsylvania; it's near impossible to think they can survive the defection of Pennsylvania to the Republican column.