Okay, first off, I have no clue why Deano feels the need to come off with such an uber-confrontational tone, other than perhaps he is merely an angry little man who needs to vent on someone.
I am going to say that BRTD is definatly being rational and civilized in this, and I appreciate that.
Now, to answer some of the questions/statements that have been out to me:
1) "All that phone banking" is going to help because it is helping us to identify which voters we need to target and remind them to either get out to the polls, vote absentee, or who we can target to try to win them over to our side.
2) I know our turnout operation is better because
I am here on the ground working for it and looking at what we have vs what they have and because we have reports throughout the state that ours is better statewide. I thought I had explained that, but I guess I had not made that sufficiently clear.
3) I never said Rendell is not gonna use his machine, I said that he is not gonna be cranking it in the same way as he would if this were a close race.
4) Acctually, Casey's strength is
not in the Southeast and even the polls bear that out. His numbers in that region, comapred to his over-all total is a lot small than they would be for an average Democrat, and he is over performing in central PA, the and the Northeast and Santorum is still stronger in Pittsburgh than his overall numbers.
5) That's not gonna matter so much though, because this election day is going to be all about turnout, and we are gonna do way better than the Casey people at that. Maybe not enough to win, but enough to make it a race.
Both bases are fired up, I think the Republican base is just now starting to get stoked. So the question is, who has the better turnout machine, the answer to that from everything that I have seen (period) is Santorum... by far.
6) Rendell's comments are
still just paying lip service to the DLC no matter how you look at it. People who are strong supporters of Rendell don't like Casey. Rendell doesn't like Casey. And the feelings are mutual. This is gonna create infighting on election day and because Rendell's people are the ones with the machine, voters who are strong supporters of Rendell are gonna be the ones who get attention. Trust me, I have seen how this stuff works first hand. Lucky for us, Swann is the one who is piggy backing off of us, so our needs are gonna come first.
7) The Party turnout machines have been gutted by McCain/Feingold. That being said, the Republicans is
still better. How do you think we won in 2004? The methods that we use to identify and target voters and areas of voters are so sophisticated that the Dems look like they are living in the Stone Age.
Rendell hands out millions from his own funds for his own reelection. He almost can't lose... if he really wanted Casey to win, he would give him more help.
9) Casey has never run against anyone who had a chance of beating him and acctually won. 2004 was a joke, Jean Pepper was a nobody who jumped into the race because she didn't have anything better to do. I've met the woman... kinda funny, I acctually made a comment about what a joke she was, then found out she was standing right behind me. What I said was "Who is the Hell is Jean Pepper?" Then the person I was talking to politely informed me "The lady right behind you". Embarassing, sure, but I don't take back the sentiment. Besides, no one gives a sh**t about who the State Treasurer is... if you are
anyone a race like that is a gimme.
10) Our offices are open later because we have more people who work harder. That's gonna make a difference in the last three days of the race.
11) In response to BRTD... I am telling you, my the polls are wrong. My honest gut feeling from being on the ground is that this is a 5 or 4 point race.
12) Undecideds are gonna swing Santorum, and there are still a lot of undecideds in this race, at least 20% which is remarkable for a race that is this far down the pike and so hotly contested and reported on. If you haven't jumped on the Casey bandwagon yet, chances are you aren't gonna.
13) Midterms favor the GOP. Even if they acctually lose them, the numbers are more favorable than they would be during a Presidential election. If I just looked at the polls, I would predict absolute disaster for the GOP on election day, all over the map, but I don't because I don't think the polls bear out the reality on the ground, plain and simple.
14) I hate to think this way, but everything negative that can be said about Sanotorum has been said. If they were sitting on anything that would crush him, they would have used it already. I can't say the same for Casey.
15) Finally, I don't think I should have to defend myself on this, but since it will never stop being talked about if I don't assert myself:
I have, on this forum, stood up for less fortunate people many many many times. My family has had to use public funded services in the past, because we didnt have the money to pay for groceries and keep our house. I have always stuck up for people who are
in need of government services.
I appologize to Rob for having offended him. I've been having one of those irritable kind of days, and I admit I went to heavy on the hyberbole.
I do not, however, apologize to Deano, as he disregarded my explantion and used the moment to fuel his political anger and charecterization of me as being a bad person.
