Specter Switches

Sen. Arlen Specter from PA announced today that he was switching parties.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter is switching parties so he can run in the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary, abandoning his party because he does not want to be "judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."

Specter, in a Tuesday afternoon statement, said he knows his supporters will be disappointed but says he is "willing to take all comers" in his Senate race. President Obama called Specter this morning when he heard the news and told the Pennsylvania senator that he's "thrilled" to have Specter on the Democratic side of the aisle.

A Cause for Alarm?

Marc Ambinder reports on two urgent emails from the Obama campaign asking supporters to volunteer in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia because the races there are closer than expected.

High Turnout in Pennsylvania

The Hill:

The Pennsylvania Secretary of State office estimates that turnout could be as high as 80 percent, compared to the 73 percent that voted in 2004.

McCain, who has campaigned heavily in Pennsylvania in the last few weeks, makes no secret that a victory in the Keystone State is critical to his becoming the 44^th president. If McCain fails to collect Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes, his road to victory will have become much more difficult. In that case, the Republican would have to sweep almost all remaining close states.

Election Day Glitches

Huffington Post on voting issues in Virginia:

At the Math and Science Center in Richmond, Virginia, an early breakdown of electronic voting machines led to a three-and-a-half hour wait to vote on Tuesday morning, according to one poll watcher.

"Some people have been here since 6 a.m., and the first voters are just finishing now," said Judith Browne-Dianis, adding that the Richmond location she was watching did not even have backup paper ballots in case of machine malfunction.

Philly.com reports problems in Pennsylvania.

Readers and Inquirer reporters attempting to cast ballots this morning found long lines across the region created by broken machines.

One of two machines was down at a busy Delaware County polling site. About 50 people already had voted by 9:15 a.m. at the Temple Israel on Spruce and Bywood Avenue in Upper Darby, which is heavily populated by immigrant and first time voters. Many of those freshly-minted voters had difficulties using the one machine that still functioned. "Hell of a day for one of the machines to be down," said one poll worker.

First Read reports problems in Florida, Michigan, and Missouri.

FLORIDA: Voters in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area have experienced numerous problems trying to cast ballots this morning. We have preliminary reports of voters being turned away from the polls for incomplete registrations and instances of the statewide problem of broken optical scan machines in some two dozen polling locations all across the state.

MICHIGAN: Voters are reporting massive voting machine malfunctions across the state resulting in long lines and discouraged voters leaving lines without casting a ballot. In many cases, poll workers are asking voters to cast their ballot on paper and they will tally them later. Some voters are being asked to vote on paper using magic markers.

MISSOURI: There were multiple reports of swapped poll books (voter lists for a given precinct at the wrong location) in Kansas City, MO. This issue has been resolved.

1 State, 1 Weekend, 1.8 Million Door Knocks

Marc Ambinder posts an Obama campaign memo with some truly stunning numbers.

Over the weekend, our volunteers knocked on 1,811,801 doors of homes from Erie to Easton, Johnstown to Jenkintown. We also made 1,193,573 phone calls to voters across the state. Unlike the McCain campaign, these aren't negative robocalls sent by the push of a button, anonymously spreading smears and lies. These are live phone calls in which Barack Obama's message of change and his plan to create an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs is laid out by a fellow voter.

Over the next 36 hours, we will make even more voter contacts than this weekend. We have 81 offices across the state, many in parts of Pennsylvania that never have seen a presidential campaign set up there before...

GOP at its Gracious Best

Pennsylvania GOP airs an attack ad featuring Rev. Wright.

House GOP leader calls Obama "chicken shit" for voting present in IL.

A selective quote from an Obama interview is used to make robocalls in coal-producing states.

Nasty push polls are reported in Ohio.

Specter Crosses Fingers for Bradley Effect

Sen. Arlen Specter is banking on the Bradley Effect.

It was hard to believe he was actually saying it, but the words were really coming out of his mouth. Arlen Specter's, that is, at an afternoon rally for John McCain in Perkasie, Pa., a small town north of Philadelphia. Specter, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, was talking about his "sense" that Election Day in his state was going to be a rude awakening for Democrats, despite weeks of polls showing Republicans lagging far behind in this former swing state. That's when he let loose with his reason for optimism:

There are a "couple of hidden factors" in this election, said Specter. "The first is that people answer pollsters one way, but in the secrecy of the ballot booth, vote the other way."

Yes. That is what he said, to a chorus of hopeful affirmation. Arlen Specter was openly -- in public, into a microphone -- crossing his fingers, and hoping for racism.

McCain Mailer Invokes Hillary Again

The Pennsylvania GOP is sending out mailers invoking Hillary's historic 18 million votes. The mailers seem to suggest that McCain and Hillary are alike. Perhaps, we can copy the mailers and send them to conservatives in battleground states where McCain is already struggling to get the base excited. Wonder what they'll think of John Clinton... or Hillary McCain, if you will.

For larger images and the original post, click here.

Desperately Seeking Pennsylvania

McCain and Palin will make multiple stops over multiple days in Pennsylvania.

The scheduling reflects McCain's tough electoral math. With some -- though by no means all -- advisers all but conceding Colorado, McCain would be forced to win a blue state in order to recoup the electoral votes. New Hampshire wouldn't give him enough, and Pennsylvania, the McCain campaign believes, is the most brittle of the remaining states. Public and private polls give Obama a double digit lead in the state, but McCain advisers believe that Obama is underperforming in the suburbs and exurban counties around Pittsburgh.

Odds and Ends

Political Wire notes that the McCain campaign has cut ad spending in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin. The spending has increased in red states of Florida and Virginia.

Political Punch notices the disparity in Virginia where Obama has 50 campaign offices to McCain's 24, 200 paid staffers in to McCain’s 50, and Obama is spending $250,000 a day on TV ads in the state, while McCain is spending $30,000 a day.

Top of the Ticket reports that voter registration has stagnated or dropped in safe states – a 5% drop in South Dakota since 2004 and a 2% decrease in New York over the same period. In contrast voter registration is up 30% in Nevada!

For the first time since 1994, there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Nebraska’s Douglas County.

Obama leads in a new poll from Montana.

Out of Options

First Read:

So many pundits and analysts are wondering why McCain is continuing to push for Iowa and Pennsylvania, despite the daunting poll numbers in those two states. There are two reasons. First, he's run out of options. If you assume Colorado is gone and that Virginia is teetering, he has to find 270 EVs somewhere. Second, Iowa and Pennsylvania are two of the oldest states in the union, as far as the age of their populations. Both states have tons of seniors, and if McCain can turn things around again with seniors, he should see movement first in these two states. Simply put, the campaign doesn't have a lot of options; it's not worth attempting to hold states that get McCain to 250 or 260 electoral votes. The game is getting to 270, and Iowa and Pennsylvania may be his last hope at keeping a path to 270 alive.

Pennsylvania Plotting

Political Wire: Gov. Ed Rendell "has sent two separate memos to the Obama campaign in the past five days requesting that the Democratic Presidential candidate -- as well as Hillary and Bill Clinton -- return to campaign in Pennsylvania."

In the meantime, McCain's political director Mike Duhaime lays out the strategy to win Pennsylvania.

He also broke down some number from the '04 race, arguing that since Democrat John Kerry won the state by only 140,000 votes, McCain “needs to flip” only 2,000 votes in each the state’s 67 counties.

***
He said the campaign is operating three dozen offices in the state and is making hundreds of thousands of phone calls every week to identify and persuade potential GOP voters. The data mining efforts are aimed at identifying former Hillary Clinton supporters and independents who are prepared to consider McCain’s message. He said the internal data is “trending” in McCain’s direction and is showing “a lot of things” not apparent in the opinion polls.

***
Duhaime predicted that McCain would surprise prognosticators even in Philadelphia, a Democratic stronghold where Obama is seen to hold a hammerlock. Kerry won the city by over 400,000 votes four years ago, winning every single ward. Duhaime said Obama won’t be able to repeat that feat, however, and that McCain will garner more votes than Bush did in the city.

For a third party analysis of the situation, and a very detailed one at that, go here.

News Briefs, 10/21/08

David Bernstein argues that McCain's only road to the White House leads through Pennsylvania.

The AFL-CIO labor federation will deploy 250,000 volunteers to 20 states over the next few weeks, hoping to maximize turnout among 13 million specially targeted union members. This is the largest independent GOTV program in the nation.

Here are some early voting numbers from key states.

Ohio Secretary of State's Web site hacked.

The September fundraising numbers for Democratic committees look good.

Here is a list of close legislative races in the states. The outcome of these races will impact redistricting in the states.

Scott J. Bloch, the embattled U.S. special counsel whose tenure has brought national attention to his once-obscure agency, said yesterday that he will resign in January instead of staying on until a replacement can take over.

Joe Klein banned from McCain Palin flights as well.

Rachel Maddow produces a sharp rise in ratings for MSNBC.

Key Counties

Politico:

Sen. Barack Obama holds leads in four key counties that will go a long way toward determining the eventual winner in four important swing states — Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — according to a new Politico/Insider Advantage survey.

Obama is poised to expand on recent Democratic gains in three populous suburban counties — Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, Missouri’s St. Louis County and Virginia’s Prince William County. In a fourth, Ohio’s Franklin County, home to Columbus and its suburbs, the survey also found Obama with the lead.

Stunning Numbers

Obama's September haul may surpass $100 million.

Approximately 94% of all eligible voters in Ohio are now registered to vote.

In Pennsylvania, "Democratic registration has surged by 13 percent and Republican ranks have shrunk by 1 percent as a record 8.6 million people in battleground Pennsylvania registered to vote in the presidential election."

"In the ABC News / Washington Post poll of Ohio, 37% of those who made it through the likely voter screen said they had been contacted by the Obama campaign in some way or another. That's ten points higher than the number who say they've been contacted by the McCain campaign. And adding in e-mails or texts, the Obama figure rises to 43% of voters -- probably a record for a presidential campaign." (Source: Marc Ambinder)

Almost 100% of McCain's advertising is negative compared to 34% of Obama's ads. (Results from the previous two-week period can be found here.)

And finally, a fantastic video that is a part of Obama's rural outreach efforts in Ohio. (H/T: Marc Ambinder)

Local Hits

Sen. McCain’s volley of negative ads has some Democrats worried that Obama is about to be swift-boated. The Obama camp has certainly responded with ads of its own, but the general impression remains that the Obama ads are mostly positive. Perhaps, there is a method to the Obama madness. By running positive ads nationally, Obama can maintain his image as a politician that is above politics as usual and allow the national media to craft a narrative that supports and feeds this impression.

In the meantime, Obama hits McCain hard on the campaign trail, where his attacks will most likely get coverage in the local media. It’s a strategy that worked for Obama in the primaries. Supplementing the verbal attacks on the campaign trail is a recently emerging pattern of localized media attacks on McCain. Obama’s ad in Nevada hits McCain on the Yucca Mountain issue. His radio ad in Ohio goes after McCain’s DHL connection and his latest ad in Wisconsin attacks McCain’s opposition to “buy American” rules.

In the general election where a handful of swing states will determine the outcome of the race, this localized strategy may just prove to be the most effective one.

* Harley-Davidson is based in Wisconsin but also has plants in York, PA and Kansas City, MO. McCain happens to have a campaign stop scheduled in York, PA.