Dick Polman, the Philadelphia Inquirer national political columnist, has this news about changing political winds in the Philly area.
"The four suburban Philadelphia counties, once reliably Republican,
have been steadily trending Democratic since the dawn of the Bill
Clinton era, and one big reason for this - as repeatedly explained to
me back in 2004, when I interviewed a slew of ex-Republican
suburbanites who had switched their registrations - is the steady
rightward tilt of the GOP on social issues. These voters were turned
off by the heavy influence of the religious right, and the national
party's moralistic opposition to abortion, gays, and stem-cell research.
"Which naturally brings us to John McCain's albatross, the sartorially splendid Sarah Palin. Let us not mince words here. McCain became road kill in the Philadelphia suburbs as soon as Palin began to open her mouth. She embodies everything that suburban moderates have come to dislike about the GOP; she erases whatever 'comfort level' those voters may once have had for McCain; she has destroyed McCain's claim to being 'a different kind of Republican.'"
