Post PA Primary musings

I have never been prouder to be a Pennsylvanian than I was last night. I was at my polling place by 6:30 a.m., left at 8 a.m. to do nine preliminary hearings, came back around 1 p.m. and stayed until closing (8 p.m.) and vote tallying (around 8:45 p.m.). In the meantime, my husband, sister and oldest daughter were texting results to my cell phone because at the polls and at the GOP after-primary party (where 3 glasses of cabarnet were probably a bit much on an empty stomach), we didn't have political TV access -- we had access to the Flyers game .

My rant last weekend about politics was dead on politically. Voters in PA came out in record numbers (25% of GOP voters at my poll turned out for a completely uncontested race; 77% of the Democratics were out). Despite the 2 Democratic committee people being overtly for Senator Obama and Senator Clinton having no one to speak on her behalf and no literature at the Democrats table and attempts by the Obama camp to have them vote for delegates committed to Obama rather than to Clinton, the vote was tied between them on the machine balloting (he won by seven votes on the absentee ballots). The Catholic, working class Democrats came out after work, bypassed us Dirty Republicans, ignored their own committee people (who were trying to harass every voter into their camp), went into the polls and gave Senator Clinton a victory in Montgomery County. It was the same ALL over the county which had been trending Senator Obama's way for weeks in the polls.

Late deciding (within the last week) voters were overwhelmingly for Senator Clinton -- Obama's comments offended them for exactly the reasons I stated over the weekend. The national media (specifically CNN and MSNBC which were my daughter and sister's channels they were sending me information from) refused to call the race for Clinton until almost 10 p.m. Fox called it around 9:05 p.m.) By 8:30 p.m., it was obvious she had beaten him and done so badly. In my district alone, before 5 p.m. and knowing who had and had not voted, he should have won by 100 votes out of 489 potential Democratic voters. By 7:30 p.m., I saw the reaction of the late voters and knew she was going to come close Obama had lost overall in the Commonwealth.

Not that I get a say in this because PA is now done and I'm from the other party, but someone needs to remind the Super Delegates of how a President is selected in November. It's called the Electoral College and it's arcane and ridiculous, but it's what we got. I couldn't sleep last night because I was overtired so I looked at the electoral math (I know... I'm a geek) and not counting Florida (which I think is a moron move for the Democrats), Senator Clinton's states vs. Senator Obama's states electors is an interesting number. In fact, I heard a new poll this morning that shows Clinton ahead of McCain in MA, but Obama losing to McCain. Perhaps the solution to this delegate quagmire should be that each state's Super Delegates must vote for the person who won the state -- sorry Senators Kennedy and Kerry, but your voters chose Clinton, not Obama. Ditto to Senator Casey in PA. In the Fall, every state is "winner take all" and, by the way, Obama is NOT going to win in Montana in November.

It's fascinating being on the outside edges of this thing -- watching it but not participating. Pundits are dumb because they do the same thing I accused Senator Obama of doing -- telling people HOW to form decisions rather than listening to how those decisions are actually formed. The voters get to do the interviewing, not the candidate. The only math that counts is in the electoral college in November.

But hey... what do I know? I voted for Govenor Huckabee .