Rendell doesn't have an angle, per se - he's simply speaking his mind, as he's famously wont to do. He has never believed that Obama can reach white voters. Every bit of his political experience militates against that conclusion. He was similarly skeptical of the polling in advance of the primary, and his concerns were borne out, to an extent - Clinton closed strong in the final week, widening the margin of her win.
It's very simple. You can count on one hand the number of politicians who managed to change the underlying demographics of the electorate. All the rest won office through a mixture of optimistic projection of their own chances and cynical realism about the nature of the electorate. It's why so few politicians were willing to back Barack early on; they didn't buy his game plan. And to this day, many of them can't believe he can actually change the electorate, can actually win over swing voters. They just don't. Rendell wants him to win, he's just panicked that he might lose.
Sure, Rendell might be bitter, or it might all be a devilishly clever conspiracy to dupe McCain. But I'll take the simplest explanation available, thanks.
The only problem is--even putting Rendell's motives aside--why does it make sense, given the dynamics of this election, to focus on Pennsylvania? It's true I've been hitting him a little too hard, and perhaps unfairly, but I don't see the wisdom of focusing there. Let's say we buy Rendell's logic. Doesn't it stand to reason that the polls could also wrong about Virginia? About Florida? About Ohio? What about Colorado? Obama has a much smaller lead in all of those states. Why isn't his lead overstated there too? If you're not confident Obama will win in Pennsylvania, why should be confident he's going to win at all? I realize the demography is different in many of those, but in three of them, you have that same vast swath of Appalachia that gave Obama problems in the primary.
It seems reactive to pin it all on Pennsylvania--like, since McCain is pitting his hopes there we should be too. But why? McCain can win Pennsylvania and he'd still be in trouble. Moreover, shouldn't we note that both Gore and Kerry won Pennsylvania? How'd they end up?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I won't cut-and-paste the comment I just put at the bottom of the other thread, but I'd bet good money that Rendell is worried about the 102-101 Dem majority in the Pennsylvania State House, especially given the serious corruption scandal (putting Dem campaign staff on the public payroll, and paying them bonuses with taxpayer funds for election performance) involving the Democratic House Majority Leader.
Also, Ed likes doing favors and any Dem State Rep who gets an Obama event this week is gonna owe the Governor big time.
My guess is McCain thinks that the Appalachian part of Pennsylvania will shock everyone and come through for him in a big way next Tuesday. The facts onthe ground here in PA seem to indicate that this unlikely. Still, to McCain's way of thinking, facts are nice, but one's "gut" is where the Truth(iness) is discerned. He's shown that he more comfortable running with a hunch than he is in thinking things through.
Why does it make sense, given the dynamics of this election, to focus on Pennsylvania?
Well, it doesn't. But if it's a weird move for Democrats, who have a lot of paths to 270 including a number that don't pass through PA, OH, or FL, it's a completely wack move for the Republicans. Why don't they go defend Virginia and North Carolina? It's worth some extra effort in this state to keep McCain and Palin bogged down there--camping out in a state does have a proven effect on poll numbers. I'm sure if MP were camping in MA they could get their margin from -20 to -17, maybe -10. Truly, I'm not into conspiracy theories, but the idea that MP were lured in here to keep them out of trouble makes more sense than their thinking it up on their own.
I would love to see Obama and Biden swinging through the marginal red states. But there's also a risk of spreading themselves too thin, pushing those states up to narrow losses while ignoring the bigger ones, which slip to narrow losses. I can see not being quite confident in banking it all on those small states.
Shorter: McCain is pinning his hopes on PA; Obama is not ceding the state to him. It's an inversion of daring McCain to leave Montana and Georgia untouched by ad money. Obama and Biden will show up enough to keep McCain and Palin pinned in the state.
Doesn't it stand to reason that the polls could also wrong about Virginia? About Florida? About Ohio? What about Colorado?
Yeah, but if Ed claimed to have any on-the-ground feeling about how those voters would jump he'd be laughed at.
And of course Pesto is probably right that the more state reps who owe Ed for a joint Obama appearance, the better for him.
Kaine, Ritter, and Strickland evangelize the importance of their states in this election just the same as Rendell. And don't forget: Each state has a few very tight senate and congressional races. Of course they want Obama on the ground! It's good for the state party. So, I don't think there is anything odd about the Governor of Pennsylvania saying Pennsylvania is a vital state in this election, and it's downright critical for Obama to campaign there.
Interesting that both PA's and VA's governors are focusing on the McCain's strongholds in their states. Just two days ago, VA governor Tim Kaine was speaking at Liberty University - that's the late Jerry Falwell's Liberty University - trying to drum up support for Obama. He encountered neither pitchforks nor torches, and from the reports I read there was even some polite applause.
Rendell only wants to help. However, I really don't see McCain winning in PA, all honesty. During the primaries, Obama got the exact % of support that pre-elections polls showed, so I don't see any deceiving to pollsters. You can check that Obama average support before the primaries was 43.4% and he ended up gathering 45.4% of support. As to right now Obama support average in PA is 52.5%. If everything stays the same, I expect Obama to gather at least 53% of the vote.
The republicans won't defend the red states, because - I think - they feel that "defend" is what sissies do. "Attack" sounds so much better.
I'm only half-kidding, here.
It's just math. We are way,way ahead in Pa. McCain has to win Fl. for any scenario of his to play out....but he also has to win a Pennsylvania size state and he's putting most of his resources there. If we can defend Pa., which should be pretty easy as carl says, everything else will work out for us, assuming the polls are even close.
If you want to cheer yourself up, consider why McCain isn't targeting Virginia, which is closer for him in the polls. I think the answer is that even he realizes that Virginia doesn't have the EVs that he needs. So he has to throw the long bomb.
It really is chess, though, more than football. The Republicans are behind on materiel and have bad board position. They can't take it unless Obama makes a mistake. So it makes sense right now for Obama to play the safest game possible
It's just the numbers-- if McCain only campaigns in the states where the polls say he has a shot, he'll lose. McCain -has- to go for at least one large state where the polls say he's doomed-- given the choices, Pennsylvania makes the most sense.
The only counter argument that makes sense is for McCain to concede, and give his money to the close Senate races. But that ain't gonna happen.
Think of it this way. There are 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter and McCain's down by 10. If you're the coach, you aren't telling your guys, "Relax, guys, the party's over". But if he doesn't ask Obama for more appearances, that's what he would be saying. It would be like putting in your bench.
Rendell is not responsible for Obama's national strategy. He's responsible for advocating what's best for his state.
Pennsylvania is the largest somewhat-competitive blue state that doesn't allow early voting without an excuse.
http://earlyvoting.net/states/abslaws.php
It probably is McCain's best chance for a late surprise. The fact that it's not anywhere near a good chance just reflects the fact that he has almost no options.
One potential factor distinguishes PA from a lot of other key states as we go down the stretch: there is no early voting. In numberous other states, there are a lot of votes in the can already. From a strategic perspective, it might be more efficient for McCain to campaign in PA, given the availability of more voters who have yet to vote and the high number of electoral college votes. As McCain gambles here, Obama would need to respond in order to protect his lead. This is not the argument that Rendell made, but this is one plausible argument for why both sides are focusing here.
Also, PA seems to be one of the places where Hillary's presence as the last white candidate standing allowed her to win support of a lot of white, conservative Democrats. I understand the impulse to worry about the middle of PA (I live in Philly), but I basically agree with everyone that Obama will win PA handily.
Also...Rendell knows Obama's gonna do what he's got to do. He knows VA, FL, OH, CO are tighter races, but he's got nothing to lose by amping up the importance of Pennsylvania. Obama's got PA in the bag, but why not keep the mystery alive in the hopes of getting a few last appearances in the last week of the campaign.
pennsylvania is mccain's ohio.
it is to mccain what ohio was to kerry in '04.
knock him off in pennsylvania and he simply cannot win.
game, set, match.
in a one sense, rendell wants obama to take the challenge and use pennsylvania as the old fashioned joe frazier left hook that puts mccain on the canvas for good.
it's pretty simple in that sense. beat him in pennsylvania and he slinks off with his tail between his legs.
while it is not probable, if mccain can turn any blue state red, it is pennsylvania.
and if obama just ignored the state, as improbable as it might be, it could just happen.
Why does Rendell focus on the importance of PA? Because he's the governor of PA, not VA or some other state. What the hell do you expect?
It makes sense because Penn is where Hillary did her most nasty smearing. The state is filled with people who believed that Obama is an elitist, believed the absurd Hillary spin on the "bitter" comments, believed that Obama couldn't represent "hard working white people".
McCain is gambling that as a result a lot of Obama's support is soft, and thus it might be easier to move big numbers in Pennsylvania that smaller numbers in places like Colorado.
If Obama loses Penn the blame should go to Hillary's and Rendell's gutter diving.
Being in PA I have been wondering about this. In the primaries he was trying to make the case for Clinton. Now I think he is just selling his state. The more time Obama spends here the better for PA it is.
I think the McCain campaign is pinning its electoral hopes in the final stages of this election on the same premise that the Clinton campaign ascribed to. They are counting on the fact that a majority of "uncommitted" voters will not vote for an African-American, especially in states like North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania.
McCain has an unprecedented under-the-radar smear campaign going on right now in these states, with independent groups sending out CD's and mailers to scare the crap out of White or Jewish undecided voters. They are especially confident because this time they have an actual "Arab", "Socialist" black man to target.
The McCain campaign has not run a serious campaign because they have never taken Obama seriously. They treat the Americans supporting Obama as stupid because they think we are stupid to elect Obama to office.
McCain is going to have the hard time looking in the mirror on November 5th because every newspaper in the country will start reminding us how incredibly incompetent his campaign was.
Rendell runs the machine in PA. If Pennsylvania ends up close at all, the Republicans will fight and cry voter fraud, launch investigations, etc. They are bound to dig up some dirt on Rendell's tactics. So it's in Rendell's interest to ensure a landslide in PA, in order to avoid any investigations that may unearth more political problems for Rendell.
Anyone else think McCain made a huge mistake in conceding Michigan? It would make a helluva lot more sense for him to be making his last stand there than in Pennsylvania, esp. with Michigan's long history of racially-polarized voting (worse than probably any other non-Southern state). If he had conceded Pennsylvania and given his all into Michigan, I think people might be a little bit worried.
Charles: Current pollster.com averages show Obama up 16% in Michigan, 11% in Pennsylvania. Add in the fact that Michigan only gets you 17 electoral votes, and Pennsylvania 21; and that Michigan's economy is significantly worse than Pennsylvania's. Tactically, the Pennsylvania gambit is probably the way to go, especially with significantly fewer dollars to throw around than Obama.
PA may be more important than we think. Keep in mind that when a candidate is in PA, he's not only reaching the PA market. He's also reaching neighboring states, like Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina. McCain's motto is close to: "it's Appalachia, stupid." PA is interesting in that it has the Appalachian demographic, and also the Jewish demographic. So those are two groups that McCain / Palin can lay the fear / hate / distortions on. If McCain scares the Jews to death (not for any legitimate reason, but I do think he's trying to scare them) and if he motivates the Appalachian contingent, he could take Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina. He doesn't even need Pennsylvania itself, but those neighboring states might just put McCain over the top.
If Obama fails to take a state where he led by 12 one week before the election, then he will be in trouble elsewhere too.
He can't afford to get sloppy now. Holding the Kerry states is the core of his strategy. If he doesn't take Pennsylvania, then Ohio, Virginia and Florida must be problematic as well. And if McCain gets Pennsylvania, he can afford to lose Virginia so Obama has a steeper hill to climb.
The paths to the Presidency start to close down for Obama when a big Kerry state like Pennsylvania is lost.
Now, I thought Rendell was cool enough, and Obama is pretty cool-headed as well. I think we can trust Obama to ensure an optimal spread of his influence on wobblers and undecideds.
Obama can win without Pennsylvania.
McCain's people pull tactics out of their asses. They dwell on what to do next as deeply as they did with the Palin pick.
I bet there's a big 8 Ball, which they consult for what to do next.
Oh, the insidious racism, the soft bigotry of low expectations. Clearly if the guy has any doubts about His Obamaness winning PA, it must be because he doubts His vote-getting power for racial reasons, or, worse yet, because he hates Him for racial reasons. Like come the fuck on. Maybe he has internal polls we don't. Maybe he's just nervous. McCain's basically camped out the past three weeks in the state. You're reading way too much into this. And about this:
"You can count on one hand the number of politicians who managed to change the underlying demographics of the electorate. All the rest won office through a mixture of optimistic projection of their own chances and cynical realism about the nature of the electorate."
Do remember that Rendell's the first Jewish mayor of a half-black city with shaky black-Jewish relations.
Living in PA and having followed Rendell's career, Ed has no doubt that PA will go for Obama. It was clear to me in that interview that he has no doubt about it (listen to the part, pointed out by others, that worst case scenario is a win by 6 or 7 points.
But...
Ed is doing exactly what the Obama campaign wants: focusing on GOTV. Rendell is right (as is Murtha) that there are a lot of older and lower middle class voters who will have a problem voting for a black man. I know because I live in Beaver County, recently featured on the front page of the NYTimes with racial ignorance proudly on display for the entire country to see and mock. We can't have people like me sitting back thinking we have it in the bag.
Plus, I think there is a lot of merit to the idea that he wants a large part of that GOTV effort to be a help in increasing Dems in the state legislature.
Ed is a brilliant pol who knows his state very, very well. But I know that twinkle in the eye he gets when he's pulling a fast one and he had it in that interview. McPalin are wasting their time, courting votes they would already have had. I hope they keep it up every day until Nov. 4.
McCain really cannot lose PA, even though Obama can probably afford it. With VA heading Obama's way, and other red states going blue (CO, NM) the path to the presidency is having to run through PA. It is better to keep attacking instead of allowing McCain to get there in PA.
gaucho -
While the *current* Michigan polling shows Obama way ahead, you've got to factor in that McCain publicly pulled out of the state, pissing off a lot of Republicans there, plus the fact that he hasn't been running ads, etc. Prior to that, the polling was a lot closer.
According to Real Clear Politics, Mcain has a solid 157 electoral votes. Let's say we give McCain all the toss ups (FL-27,MT-3,ND-3,IN-11,MO-11) That brings him to 227. There are 52 (NV-5,CO-9,NM-5,OH-20,VA-13) leaning Obama. If McCain runs the table on these it brings him to 279. He's very likely to lose VA and CO. PA-21 would make up for those loses and western PA has an electorate tailor-made for the kinda campaign they are running. There's just not enough votes in W. PA to flip the state. McCain would need to also flip Philly suburbs. Its a long shot, but he does not have many options. It makes strategic sense for Obama to get McCain to focus all his energy on PA and neglect the other battleground states.
i'd rather see him trying to pick off GA and affect the senate race, but nothing wrong with nailing down PA and getting media coverage that goes into WV and OH.
Gov Rendell is a dog whistling SOB. He has never repeat never down anything for the AfricanAmericans in the state of PA except but them in jail when he was the carpetbagging DA from NY. His alliance w/John Street was a farce and if the economy had not been as good as it was during their tenures PA and Philadelphia would be Detroit and Michigan. If he can't find a way to give away money he doesn't do a thing.
Maybe Rendell and Murtha have together decided to pull a little trick. "O woe is me, our constituents are such racists. Obama could be in real trouble in Pennsylvania." In other words, "please, please don't throw him into Mr. MacGregor's garden. He's gonna lose!"
McCain gets the message loud and clear, and consequently throws a large chunk of his dwindling assets into a state he's unlikely to win. "But Rendell TOLD me they were racists!"
Meanwhile, Peter Rabbit runs off with all Mr. MacGregor's (er, McCain's) carrots.
I am wondering not just why McCain is focusing on PA, but why he seeems to be concentrating on rural, out-of-the-way venues. Today he was in Defiance Ohio-- that's a very small city in NW Ohio with nothing much anywhere near it (it's about 70 miles from both Toledo and Fort Wayne IN). Are there really that many votes to be had in Defiance OH? Moreover, rural NW Ohio has been voting Republican since Lincoln's day. Those people are (or ought to be) already in McCain's bag. What's he doing there? If he wants to be vote-trolling in NW Ohio he should be in Sylvania or Perrysburg or some other Toledo suburb. For some years now every election has been won or lost in the suburbs. Is there some point to this boondocks strategy that I'm not seeing, or does the campaign already know they've lost the 'burbs?