A maddening loss for Obama in Pennsylvania. And a potential crash for McCain

Barack Obama is getting support from Republicans in Pennsylvania as he is elsewhere around the country.  The crossover votes in many states -- certainly here in Texas -- have been significant. 

But here's the rub.  According to a report on NPR, Republicans in Pennsylvania they need to have registered their change of party well before candidates began to campaign in the state.  There's no opportunity to listen and meet the candidates before deciding. The rules are such that, no matter how hard candidates work in Pennsylvania, they are denied crossover votes thanks to what seems like a very silly, possibly purely bureaucratic, rule which ties the hands of Pennsylvania voters well before their primaries.

The NPR report gives an interesting view of where Pennsylvania voters are right now.

Meanwhile, the latest New York Times/CBS poll shows a nation so disillusioned by the Bush presidency that there is real risk for John McCain and Republicans.

In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002. ...

... The unhappiness presents clear risks for Republicans in this year’s elections, given the continued unpopularity of President Bush. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they approved of the job he was doing, a number that has barely changed since last summer.

There's a kicker, though. 

Democrats, who have controlled the House and Senate since last year, also face the risk that unhappy voters will punish Congressional incumbents.

Comments

[Dan]

I suspect the Iraq war will single handedly lose the election for McCain. He is emphatically behind a massively unpopular policy and no amount of benign neglect by the media will change that. People might not want to speak out too forcefully for fear of seeming unpatriotic, but if the Democrats make the election all about the war they will absolutely bury the Republicans. Maybe I'll bookmark this comment and revisit in November....

[Jay McDonough]

from swimming freestyle:

Two disappointing and, undoubtedly, related statistics. And stinging indictments of a Bush Administration that is so ideologically bent on deregulation, they've given up any stewardship of the American economy. As a consequence, we continue to drift towards an economic downturn European analysts refer to as depression-like while Mr. Bernanke dances nervously in Congressional hearings afraid to say the "R" word and President Bush goes AWOL to a NATO conference. It will require some real Houdini like moves on the part of the Administration and their minions to squirm out of accountability for this gigantic mess.

Democrats need to loudly remind voters the consequences of leaders allowing outdated and disproven ideological considerations to interfere with the business of managing the government and the, now obvious, implications for the American people.

Loudly. Very loudly.

http://swimmingfreestyle.typepad.com