Saturday, September 13, 2008

Obama: Good-bye, Florida!

Read 'em and weep, Democrats:
Obama allies say he has about 350 paid staffers in the state and about 50 field offices, including in places not known as fertile ground for Democrats, such as Sun City Center, Lake City and Sebring.
But for all the attention to Florida from the Obama campaign, there's little tangible evidence it's paying off.
He is farther behind in the state than John Kerry was at this point in 2004, even though McCain began buying Florida TV ads only last week. By this time in 2004, the Bush-Cheney campaign had spent $13-million on Florida TV. In the rolling average of Florida polls compiled by the Web site RealClearPolitics.com, Obama has never taken the lead over McCain in Florida, and the latest average shows him behind by 5 percentage points. They were tied in early August.
Four Florida polls came out this week, with one showing a tied race, the others showing McCain leading by 5 to 8 percentage points.
Three obvious reasons for this:
  • The military vote -- Lots of military personnel (especially Navy personnel) and retired veterans in Florida, and they like McCain.
  • The Cuban-American vote -- Traditionally Republican, the Cuban vote is rallying to its GOP loyalties after a down cycle in 2006 due to the Mark Foley scandal. Whatever pundits say about Obama's problems with Hispanic voters, it goes double (or triple) for the Cubans.
  • The geezer vote -- Geezers love John McCain. The over-70 vote is his trump card in this election. And you gotta imagine some of the geezers look at Sarah Palin and see either (a) a super-successful woman who exemplifies their ideals, or (b) that hot nurse on the second shift.
Isn't it amazing that, just eight years after the Gore-Bush deadlock in Florida, Democrats have fallen so low that they can't even compete there? Hillary, maybe. Obama, no.
You can see the RCP Florida numbers here.

UPDATE: Over at AmSpecBlog, I discuss how the Palin pick has disoriented the Democrats.

UPDATE II: Jim Wooten of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sees signs of Democratic panic; Commentary's Jennifer Rubin warns against GOP overconfidence.

4 comments:

  1. Not to mention the debacle of the primary for the democrats. Hillary won the state (you know people actually voted for her) but the D's know better they awarded O'Bama delegates he never received. Now if they can only do that in the general they will be all set!

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  2. some of the geezers look at Sarah Palin and see

    ...their daughter.

    Probably just as much as the other two items you listed.

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  3. Florida?
    C'mon...we all know Florida is the intellectual dead-zone of America. I say give Florida to the Venezuelans in exchange for oil. Good riddance!
    But what I'd really like to know is if Palin was sooo fantastic in her first interview on ABC why are all y'all going after Gibson? Something doesn't quite add up here. I'm thinking you all deep down know she came off as the empty skirt she really is.In comparison to Obama on O'Reilly, Barack walked thru the fire unscathed. But poor Sarah...she couldn't talk herself out of her pork-barrel lies and the mean MSM is to blame. Oh boo hoo hoo...
    I realized this is all silly. Why bother debating anything when it is clear Conservatives are dead set on voting for Palin despite her glaring deficiencies?
    You've all taken the Cult of Personality to an all new
    low.
    But as Rove has demonstrated before, America is a country overflowing with suckers and there's a new sucker born everyday.
    God help us.

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  4. The O-and-Savior could move his entire FLA staff to Polk County.

    However, it's possible that none of them would ever be seen or heard from again.

    ReplyDelete