Predict Pennsylvania

[Boris]

Strangely enough, I am beginning to shift my view and say that McCain has a slightly better chance of winning Pennsylvania.  Between Obama insulting rural PA during the primaries, the Murtha insulting Western PA (first being racist and then redneck), and now audio of Obama wanting to make it economically impossible to build new coal plants (basically killing the economies of Western PA), that might be enough to tip the SW counties of PA in McCain's favor.

Has the Obama campaign responded to the coal audio clip yet? All of the other factors you mentioned should already be accounted for in the PA polls (which have obviously tightened in the past two weeks but seem to have stabilized at Obama +4-8). But the coal could be a wildcard factor, assuming it isn't already too little, too late....

[MODU]

Strangely enough, I am beginning to shift my view and say that McCain has a slightly better chance of winning Pennsylvania.  Between Obama insulting rural PA during the primaries, the Murtha insulting Western PA (first being racist and then redneck), and now audio of Obama wanting to make it economically impossible to build new coal plants (basically killing the economies of Western PA), that might be enough to tip the SW counties of PA in McCain's favor.

Has the Obama campaign responded to the coal audio clip yet? All of the other factors you mentioned should already be accounted for in the PA polls (which have obviously tightened in the past two weeks but seem to have stabilized at Obama +4-8). But the coal could be a wildcard factor, assuming it isn't already too little, too late....

Yeah, it was something rather weak about "Obama is from a coal producing state, and he supports new technology in clean coal" or something along those lines.  Sorry, but Illinois isn't that high on the list of coal producing states, and the quote is quite clear:  "If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted."

[Lief 🗽]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

[J. J.]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

[Lief 🗽]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

[SPC]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

So, just because you live a different way than everyone else, you feel that you have the right to force everyone else to adopt to your way of doing things? Sounds fascistic.

[Lunar]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

Actually, prices are determined by the market.  That's why oil we get from America isn't any cheaper than oil we import.  You don't really pay lower electricity prices because your area has a more efficient power plant, as far as I know.

[Lief 🗽]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

So, just because you live a different way than everyone else, you feel that you have the right to force everyone else to adopt to your way of doing things? Sounds fascistic.

Well, if we have to be fascists to protect the environment, then we're fascists.

[J. J.]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

It will be reflected in your tuition and the general price of power will drive up the price from all sources.

[SPC]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

I don't pay for utilities here at college, and back home all of our power is hydro-electric.

So, just because you live a different way than everyone else, you feel that you have the right to force everyone else to adopt to your way of doing things? Sounds fascistic.

Well, if we have to be fascists to protect the environment, then we're fascists.

"We recognize that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind’s own destruction and to the death of nations. Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger. That is the fundamental point of the biological tasks of our age. Humankind alone is no longer the focus of thought, but rather life as a whole . . . This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought."

Ernst Lehmann

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Well, that increases my support of Obama a little bit.

Until you get your electric bill.

Mine was a whopping $15 last month. Oh noes!

[2952-0-0]

I just knew someone had to invoke Godwin's Law.

Excellent.

[Bacon King]

derp derp SPC, that quote was entirely irrelevant. You're arguing that environmental laws are bad because some Nazi said environmental laws were good?

[Eraserhead]

Obama: 53%
McCain: 46%
Other: 1%

Same for me.

[opebo]

McCain by about one percentage point.  So say about 50.5% McCain, 49.5% Obama.

[??????????]

McCain by 0.25%

[Kalimantan]

everyone's so conservative. Obama 55 McCain 44.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hardly anyone is employed in coal mining in Pennsylvania these days (there are some localised exceptions; IIRC Greene county is the main one, though I'm not entirely sure) and, in any case, people employed in that industry have tended to never directly link their interests to that of their employers. Straws. Clutching. At.

[Smash255]

Obama by 8.6%

[MODU]

Hardly anyone is employed in coal mining in Pennsylvania these days (there are some localised exceptions; IIRC Greene county is the main one, though I'm not entirely sure) and, in any case, people employed in that industry have tended to never directly link their interests to that of their employers. Straws. Clutching. At.

There's approximately 12,000 coal miners alone in Pennsylvania.  Add on top of that the trucking and rail jobs associated with moving that coal, jobs creating the tools, and local businesses setup to support the coal miners, you're talking about anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 people directly or indirectly involved and impacted by the industry.  This is why you hear about the old steel towns failing, since all the support industries lose business/customers when the primary town business fails.

[JSojourner]

derp derp SPC, that quote was entirely irrelevant. You're arguing that environmental laws are bad because some Nazi said environmental laws were good?

King, you're trying to converse with a person who believes we can finance our national defense solely with donations.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's approximately 12,000 coal miners alone in Pennsylvania.

This in a state with close(ish) to 6 million jobs in total. Yeah, the industry still matters a lot in some areas, and yeah, you have all the jobs that are associated (to one extent or other) with the industry, and yeah, it'd suck if the remaining mining jobs went, but it's not really that economically important anymore (certainly not to what it was until a few decades ago). And "in any case people employed in that industry have tended to never directly link their interests to that of their employers".

[Franzl]

Is anybody actually showing the "coal video" in these areas?

Or is there much chance that it could still have much of an impact?

I tend to think it's much too late to really change much.

[MODU]

Is anybody actually showing the "coal video" in these areas?

That I don't know yet, but if they were smart, a video of some sort would have been running early yesterday and then later replaced with a more refined message.  If I were to create the message, I would start with Biden saying No coal plants in America, followed by Obama saying he wants to bankrupt anyone building a plant, and ending with Murtha calling Western PA racist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is anybody actually showing the "coal video" in these areas?

Video? Oh, I thought we were talking about an advert in a form that might have half a chance of actually swinging even a single vote one way or the other...