Pennsylvania in Play
Senator McCain has pinned much of his hopes to Pennsylvania, a state experiencing a lot of economic pain which he and Governor Palin are promising they will ease. At least one major poll, Mason-Dixon/CBS News, corroborates the McCain campaign's claim that they are within a 4 point margin of Obama in the state, with 43% for McCain, 47% for Obama, and 9% undecided.
That's too close. As a native son of Pennsylvania, and proud of it, I know it's critical for Obama to win in the state, and I also know it's in Pennsylvanian's interest to elect him.
We are living through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and we are facing one of the worst recessions in the last 100 years, with thousands of Pennsylvanians at risk for losing their jobs and their homes. This is no historical accident; it's a direct result of the policies of the Bush Administration, which Senator McCain has supported.
As the former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, I have seen firsthand the good that government can do. When I left office as a decade ago, we had achieved balanced budgets, robust economic growth producing jobs for talented people, and a banking system that was both well regulated and leading the world in innovation.
All this has been squandered as a result of eight years of failed economic policies of the Bush Administration. Its lax financial regulation, and its profligate fiscal policy run counter to the values I learned growing up in Pennsylvania, and counter to the values of working families, who know it's wrong to borrow more than you can afford. Senator McCain saw fit to support those failed policies and would almost certainly continue to follow them were he to be elected President.
The priorities for getting Pennsylvania and the US economy on the track to economic recovery are clear:
1. We must have a fair and serious regulatory regime for all financial institutions operating in the United States, one that does not tolerate the "payday lenders," "liar loans" and usurious "option-ARM" crowd that have been allowed to devastate our citizens.
2. We have to balance our federal budget and get our trade deficit under control. We must stop pledging our future and our children's future to foreign companies that take our jobs and sell us knick-knacks in return.
3. We have to pursue policies that are fair to local economies and local financial institutions, and that do not tilt the playing field to large concentrations of wealth and power in only one or two U.S. or foreign financial capitals. How sad our forefathers would have been to see a small group of U.S. mega-banks forced to be partially nationalized by the federal government. How dismayed they would have been by government policies that have so concentrated power and wealth and so poorly regulated it that all we can do is put billions of dollars of taxpayer money into these institutions to prop up our financial system.
I am convinced that Senator Obama can move America in this direction, which is why I strongly support him for president.
This will be the most important election in our lifetime. What's at stake is whether or not we will be able to bequeath a stable, sound economy to future generations. That's a question which Pennsylvanians have a big role in deciding on Tuesday.
Mr. Ludwig is CEO of Promontory Financial Group, a global financial consulting firm with headquarters in Washington, D.C. He served as U.S. Comptroller of the Currency from 1993 to 1998.
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What I never understood about "Pennsylvania being in play" is that we haven't gone Republican in more than twenty years and just two years ago we threw Rick Santorum out on his butt. In play? How?
Thank you Mr. Ludwig,
Being from a small town in PA I am here to tell you we are aware how important this election is for us, we will be casting our vote for Obama/Biden, the pressure here is intense, businesses in this area are paying their employees to put Mccain signs in their yards but they will be voting Obama. The people are being told Obama will be bad for them when in fact its the oposite, we are well informed.
The phones ring off the hook day and night driving us crazy we will prevail .PA will stay blue...
Well Manu...I wish there were 2 million just like you, but most aren't as smart.
Never trust a Mason-Dixon poll.
Good for Gene. He was a great head of the OCC and I'm very pleased to see him weigh in on this important election.
I firmly believe in the democratic (small D) process and I could accept an honest defeat for Obama/Biden. What I cannot and will not accept are all the dirty tricks: glitches in voting machines that all seem to flip Obama votes to McCain votes but curiously never the other way; wide-scale purging of registered voters from the list, fliers giving misinformation about polling times and places; voter intimidation by threatening arrests for outstatnding traffic tickets etc.; push-polling etc.
No more stolen elections. No more dirty tricks. Let us reject the Cynical Campaign to Nowhere. Let all America say with one voice to McCain/Palin on Novemeber 5th: "Thanks, but no thanks."
Will we never be able to unite and choose a leader liked by everyone? Why can't we find a "Perfect Leader"?
I also found a video that brings up these questions, and gives an interesting answer to them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk1NjrSHrWE
This is not even close to one of the worst recessions of the last 100 years, not even close. Unemployment is still only 6.1%. It will rise to 7%, but that is still not even close to the much higher levels we've seen during numerous recessions in the past 100 years. We also can't forget that the economy had been very strong from early 2003 thru late 2007, and even showed strength for industrial companies thru most this year until the last two months. I would hardly call that a "failed" economic policy. About the budget, we face a large deficit now, but the budget deficits in 2006 and 2007 were small and the 2005 deficit was not bad. About the trade deficit, I'm surprised most people haven't noticed that exports have gone up tremendously over the last several years and the "non-petro" trade deficit was the smallest in the last months than at any time since 1997. About regulation, there has been a bi-partisan move toward deregulation for the last 30-35 years. This is not soley a Republican move like so many seem to believe. Now I'm with many for an increase in taxes for revenues to help balance the budget and for Obama to become President to represent change in Washington and bring some new confidence to the American people, but the left and right wing alike need to be less partisan and start looking at actually hard data than simply using baseless propaganda.
The reason unemployment appears to be so low is that they're using a different metric than in the past--one that excludes more workers who have given up hope of getting a job from the unemployment number. The overall measure of unemployment right now is the worst since they started using the modern method of measurement a couple decades ago.
The "strength" of the economy from 2003 to 2007 was largely an illusion, created by unreasonable borrowing patterns. I appreciate your playing of the devil's advocate, but there's not a particularly strong case to be made that Bush 43 managed the economy in any sort of a reasonable way.
That's not true. The unemployment metric the media focuses on is U3. There is another metric which takes into account discouraged workers called U5. And U5 right now is lower than it was from 200 thru 2004, and much lower than it was in the beginning of 1994.
http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/data.exe/blsln/lnu03327708
I don't understand your comment about growth from 2003 thru 2007 being an illusion. If over-investment in residential housing fueled the boom from 2003 thru 2005, over-investment in technology and telecommunications fueled the boom of the late 90s, over-investment in commercial real-estate fueld the boom in the late 80s, and over-investment in manufacturing fueld the boom in the early 70s.
And you were probably the one who broke up the food fights in the junior high lunch room, too. I guess, if we have to be good, we'll try. But if anybody wants to throw a pie at me, I like lemon merrangue.
Apple or peach this way! :)
As a Pro-Life Catholic, I am supporting Barack Obama with my donations, volunteering in PA (last Wednesday and Thursday and again tomorrow and election day, and of course with my vote. I regret that many Catholic bishops have crossed the line from simply being politically involved to downright partisan. They are wrong.
To all my co-religionists in PA: Anti-abortion does not automatically mean Pro-Life. The Democrats' policies of healthcare, women's issues, the environment, jobs, retirement for seniors and, of course, peace are VERY pro-Life.
Obama will create the type of society where abortions remain safe, legal but increasingly rare.
Need further convincing? The Nazis banned abortion (especially for white women!) Does anyone think they were Pro-Life?
Choose life! Vote Obama/Biden!
We need to retire the label "pro-life" for people who are merely "anti-choice." Do you think the HuffPO posters can start a movement?
Universal healthcare has the potential to dramatically reduce the number of abortions as do economic policies that favor the middle class. We need to start tracking the percentage of abortions that occur under Dem administrations vs Repub administrations and the Dems need to work hard to reduce the likelihood that women will be put in a position where they feel they must choose abortion.
Totally agree. I find it the term "pro life" offensive and totally missing the point of choice. Between a woman and her physician not the government.
Very well said, Manu. Interesting points of view ...
Stop the robo-calls to me from Bob Casey & Bill Clinton. They are an annoying, cheap ploy which will drive me to writing in Jason Linkins for POTUS & Shirley McClain for VP. I'm going over to Jersey to buy a bottle. When I get back to Pa, I'll start drinking it & I'm also going to unplug my phone till 11/5/08.
Get caller-ID. Works for me.
There are many important policy reasons NOT to vote for McCain/Palin. Tax cuts for the wealthy only...again...taxing your health Insurance benifits, privitizing Social Security, building 45 new Nuclear Power Plants all across the country within the next ten years. Picture a map of the US with 45 MORE Nuclear Power Plants dotted across it! How about in YOUR neighborhood? Perhaps you'd volunteer YOUR neighborhood for one of the new Nuclear poisonous waste dumps that will be needed to dispose of all the toxic waste from 45 more Nuclear Power Plants!
But here is another reason....
the kind of campaign McCain/Palin has run. Again, McCain and Palin have reached down into the gutter of personal destruction as a campaign strategy. They have encouraged some of the most ugly attacks and hideous ads, and have blatently lied about Barack Obama, to win this election. Things they have implied have actually encouraged the most hateful people to want to do physical harm to Obama. Sadly, McCain's campain has become vile and dishonerable. Coming from John McCain, who lost in 2000 himself due to the ugly hateful capaign againt him, I thought he would be above this filth. Shame on him. If he wins it means this dishonest filth, WORKED again. We will never have intelligent honest debates about important issues facing us. Only the stomach twisting, ugly politics of personal destruction that DIVIDES us and renders us incapable of addressing our problems.
I don't understand the opposition to partially privatizing social security. First, it would be voluntary and only partial. And if that happened, people would actually be in control of their own money rather than hope the govt will be good for the money years from now when they retire, plus you can get much higher returns investing the money yourself than the current 2% cola increases. Second, I don't understand the opposition to nuclear power. We simply need to ween ourselves off fossil fuels, plus building nuclear plants to replace polluting ones will create a lot of good jobs, which we sorely need right now.
Is this a delayed post from 1998? Yeah, you can get "much higher returns" provided that you don't get TOTALLY WIPED OUT which is what is, um, happening right now. Return to Jimmy Darrin in the Time Tunnel.
Last 4 PA polls - +6, +4, +8, +4.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/pa/pennsylvania_mccain_vs_obama-244.html
+4 is not really an outlier. There is clearly a trend of the lead falling fast (from the mid teens only 7 days ago).
And if Murtha and others are right PA will likely have the largest 'Bradley Effect' .
Now +6,+4,+7,+4
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/pa/pennsylvania_mccain_vs_obama-244.html
When you make up numbers you lose credibility. Mason-Dixon is the ONLY poll at 4. The next lowest is 6 and they go as high as 14. M-D has clearly undersampled dems in their polling just as the Bush Labor Dept changed their sampling numbers to lower the unemployment number. It time for truthfulness and transparency.
Could be. I once saw PA described thusly: "Well, there's Philadelphia and then there's Northern Alabama."
i dont understand the bradley effect. if your a rural white, you dont like black people but you dont what? want to hurt the polltakers feelings?....i dont buy it. its MUCH more likely that if your poor and white, you would lie about voting for MCAIN, especially women.
I live outside of Philly in one of the more red-leaning neighborhoods of a red-leaning suburb. This go-round of the Prez cycle, there are about one-third to one-quarter the number of lawn signs for McCain as there were for Bush in 2004.
Maybe McCain is making inroads. If he is, however, it's not being reflected in any outward displays of enthusiasm.
And about half of my reliably Republican friends have said that they were so personally offended by the Palin VP pick that they're voting for Obama.
But we'll see come Tuesday.
go to fivethirtyeight.com for accurate polling details and analysis. pennsylvania isn't really in play.
Sorry but Pennsylvania is not in play.
That's what I've been trying to tell them! Thanks, Jacob!
Somebody's" up to their old tricks again!!! I volunteered at my local Obama office today in Pennsylvania to GOTV. My job was to call known Obama supporters and let them know their polling location. Well, "somebody" was calling the Obama supporters on our lists and misinforming them of their polling location and telling them to go to the wrong locales. The supporters I called didn't understand why I was giving them conflicting information. "Somebody" is trying to steal this election! Please visit www.voteforchange.com to find your accurate polling location. Obama/Biden 08
report this to the secretary of state's office.
If you have a Republican Secretary Of State nothing will be done because they are part of the problem.
Secretary of the Commonwealth appointed by the Governor. Voter info here: http://www.votespa.com/
I figured the Rethugs had tricks like this up their sleeves since McCain is "so confident" he can "win" PA. I hope the person in charge at your local office passed this on to the right people. CNN and MSNBC both have voter hotlines you can report stuff like this to as well - you never know it might just air and help some people.
We need Federally issued voting cards that will entitle us to vote anywhere in the state because the voting cards will be encrypted and will require a password to activate. Our current system is antiquated and needs revision. The voting cards will have a number that is unique to the individual whose encrypted photo,signature,etc are traceable and the vote can be verified by pulling up that number to make sure that our votes are cast for the person we intended them for.The voting machines will be required by law to produce a receipt. Have any of you ever used your credit or debit cards and not gotten a receipt. The old guard are trying to hold on to their voter fraud capabilities by chaining us to a system that was vulnerable to fraud. A new system will favor the will of the people and not the will and cunning of either political party.
They are doing a good job in Wisconsin with the voter marking the card, printing and reviewing it and handing it in to be fed thru a scanner and then these paper ballots can be recounted if needed by feeding them thru another machine to crosscheck the totals...
The perpetrators of this misdirection need to be found, prosecuted, and if guilty, jailed.
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