There was a good reason why John McCain spent an entire day
in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, speaking at three different rallies:
because he can win the state and, with it, the presidency.
If I were McCain, I would order my campaign to put together
TV and radio ads featuring just three items: Barack Obama’s
infamous jab about workers “clinging” to religion and guns out of
bitterness, Democratic U.S. Rep. John Murtha’s statement calling
western Pennsylvanians racists while speaking in favor of Obama,
and Murtha’s garbled apology on the race statement in which he
compounded the insult by saying: “What I mean is there’s still
folks that have a problem voting for someone because they are
black,” and that “This whole area, years ago, was really
redneck.”
“What Jack Murtha said in the past couple of days has
helped [McCain] immeasurably,” Pennsylvania’s former U.S. Sen.
Rick Santorum told me on Tuesday.
I would run those 30-second ads back to back, every time,
with another ad in which McCain calls for “bringing manufacturing
jobs back home to Pennsylvania” by cutting corporate income taxes
that are “sending all of our jobs offshore.”
“In Ireland, they cut their corporate rate to 12.5% and
started adding so many jobs they call Ireland the Celtic Tiger,”
he could say. “Our rate of 35% is three times that; why don’t we
cut it, bring home those jobs, and make our economy roar like
Nittany Lions?”
I would then schedule even more McCain campaign appearances
in the western part of the state, alongside former Steeler great
and gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann and any of a number of
other Pennsylvania heroes, whoever would do it — perhaps Arnold
Palmer. McCain should draw the contrasts with Obama as strongly
as possible on being tough against terrorists, on support for the
Second Amendment, for a sensible position against partial birth
abortion as opposed to Obama’s horrendous stance against the Born
Alive Infants Protection Act, and against higher taxes of the
sort Obama would impose on Joe the Plumber.
McCain should then go east and campaign in the Philadelphia
suburbs with Arlen Specter, doing anything and everything Specter
advises him to do. (I would think a nice mention of Sam Alito and
of the “reasonableness” of the Gang of 14 as opposed to Obama’s
obstructionist on judges would help somewhere in the state,
perhaps in the northeast, as well.) And Tom Ridge should be with
him everywhere he goes.
Finally, the McCain camp should record robo-calls, to use
anywhere in the state that is not in the congressional
district of Paul Kanjorski, that feature the voice of Kanjorski
challenger and Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta urging a vote for
McCain based on his record on taxes and national defense — and
use the calls on Election Day only, as a get-out-the-vote
mechanism. Barletta is a hero in almost every small town in the
state for his efforts to force employers and landlords to stop
catering to illegal immigrants.
The idea is that McCain has a chance to combine the winning
formulas of Santorum and of Specter: Using conservative cultural
issues in the rural areas, like Santorum did, along with some
good last-minute efforts to have conservative Catholics and
Evangelicals “go viral” with a massive get-out-the-vote effort;
and using his moderate credentials (peacemaker on judges,
supporter of clean coal as opposed to the Obama-Biden slams at
coal, crusader against corruption, and the guy who tried to pass
legislation long in advance to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac) to attract the state’s eastern moderates who have kept
Specter in office all these years.
The Democratic gaffes on God, guns, race, and coal, along
with the state’s broad swath of more culturally conservative and
pro-defense defense voters, along with some clever campaigning,
can make Pennsylvania more winnable by McCain than any other 2000
and 2004 “blue” state with the possible exception of New
Hampshire. Those factors together may even make McCain stronger
in Pennsylvania than he is in 2004 blue states such as New Mexico
and Iowa.
If McCain somehow picks up Pennsylvania, his campaign all
of a sudden becomes far, far easier. The arithmetic looks like
this: President Bush won 286 electoral votes. It takes 270 to
win. McCain appears likely to lose Bush states Iowa (7) and New
Mexico (5), and could lose Nevada (5) as well. That brings him
down to a 269-269 tie, which would likely mean an eventual loss
in the House of Representatives. But if McCain wins the Keystone
State, with its 21 electoral votes, he can lose those three
states plus, say, Missouri (11) and Colorado (9), and
still win. If he wins Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, he
can lose Virginia (13) and Missouri (while still holding
Colorado) and still emerge victorious. Or he could lose New
Hampshire but win Nevada, and he would even have an elector to
spare.
Granted, there is no way for the Arizonan to win
Pennsylvania if he loses nationally by more than about four
points. But if he pulls within three points nationally, he might
just snatch Pennsylvania even if he falls short in some of the
other states where Bush triumphed.
Way back in the spring, my colleague at the Washington
Examiner, West Virginia native Chris Stirewalt, accurately
predicted an Appalachian backlash in the Democratic primaries in
favor of Hillary Clinton over Obama. Guns and God are important
in the hills of West Virginia, southeastern Ohio, eastern
Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania. And rural Pennsylvanians, I
am reliably told, are particularly turned off by the airs of the
coastal, liberal elites, the folks like Obama who went to
Columbia and Harvard and then opine about how “bitter” the poor
hillbillies are. McCain can tap into those Appalachian values,
and do it honorably, and snatch Pennsylvania right out from under
Obama’s snooty nose.
