Philly Daily News: Did Obama blow the election by blowing off Philly?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/18099264.html

Did Obama blow the election by blowing off Philly?
By DAVE DAVIES
Philadelphia Daily News

[e-mail] 215-854-2595

MAYBE Barack Obama was destined to lose Pennsylvania by 9 percentage points anyway, after Jeremiah Wright, the "bitter" controversy and a bruising debate.
But friends and adversaries of the Illinois senator are puzzled that his campaign didn't make better use of its most potent weapon: Obama himself.

"I don't understand it," said Marcel Groen, a Clinton supporter and Democratic chairman of Montgomery County. "He's the most gifted orator I've seen among presidential candidates in my lifetime. He has the capacity to command huge crowds and blow people away. Explain to me why he has only one major rally in seven weeks."

Obama had only one big rally, Friday on Independence Mall.

He campaigned far less in Pennsylvania than rival Hillary Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, and husband, President Clinton, also stumped throughout the state and region.

"Hillary and Chelsea were in Haverford one morning, and Bill did two events at two high schools that evening," Groen said. "Those events probably touched about 7,000 people, and in a close race, that's meaningful."

Clinton edged Obama in vote-rich Montgomery County by 2,200 votes.

And in the seven-week campaign leaning up to Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary, Obama never set foot in North or West Philadelphia, black communities that contained his most fervent base of support.

Asked about that several weeks ago, Obama said that the campaign was concentrating on areas where he was less known. Those efforts apparently yielded precious little.

To pick one example, Cambria County, which includes the western Pennsylvania city of Johnstown, voted 72 percent to 28 percent for Clinton.

Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he "questioned Sen. Obama's decision not to campaign more in Philadelphia."

"If you recall my 2002 campaign for governor, I visited every county in the state," Rendell said. "But in the last 10 days, I lived in the Philadelphia media market, because I knew I had to drive out my base."

Obama won Philadelphia by a 65-to-35-percent margin Tuesday, and it appears turnout in African-American wards was robust.

But state Sen. Anthony Williams, an ardent Obama supporter, said he was hoping for a superlative turnout.

"To get that kind of turnout, maybe he should have spent time on 52nd Street, and 63rd Street, and Allegheny, and Cecil B. Moore," Williams said.

"I saw young white voters energized, but there are a lot of young black people in the neighborhoods, 18, 20, 21 years old, and if he'd shown up more in those streets, we might have seen them more energized," Williams said.

In white areas of Northeast Philadelphia, Clinton rolled up big margins - 77 to 23 percent in the 58th ward, 74 to 26 in the 55th, and 76 to 34 in the 66th.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said Clinton's energy helped her in the city.

"Hillary and Bill were knocking on doors and working diners like local candidates," Butkovitz said. "When Obama came to town, he was treated like a rock star. Hillary was treated more like the girl next door, or the City Council candidate, and was rewarded at the polls."

While Obama came away from the city with a 130,000-vote margin, he lost narrowly in the four suburban counties, and suffered big defeats in most of the rest of the state.

Media consultant Neil Oxman said there's one thing both sides should feel good about, which is that "2.3 million Democrats voted in this primary, and that number is just unbelievable. "The Republicans have to be scared by that number." *

[jackson_dem]

1. One thing that has been overlooked about Philly is Obama got clobbered in Latino wards

His weakness among Latinos has gone under the radar in the press because since Super Tuesday only one state that has voted has a large Latino population. His Philadelphia performance suggests he is still tanking with Latinos. He got 32% in Texas and performed about as bad in Latino wards.

[tishaLA]

19. The Latino population in Philadelphia is quite small

and is concentrated in a very small area, about 10 blocks. There is only one ward in Philadelphia that can be called "Latino."

[Beacool]

34. You're right!!

I knocked on enough doors in the last few weeks and, just as in other states, the majority of Hispanics were strongly pro Clinton.

[Barack_America]

2. Would it kill these journalists to actually check facts?

Obama won 2 of 4 of Philly's suburban counties.

http://www.electionreturns.state.pa.us/ElectionsInformation.aspx?ElectionID=27

[redqueen]

3. Heh.

[Coexist]

25. Yes, he did.

[JackintheGreen]

4. Generally, I like Rendell, BUT

this makes him look like a dick:

>Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he "questioned Sen. Obama's decision not to campaign more in Philadelphia."

No mention that Obama refused to pay the Philly machine's "street money," or whatever the fuck they're calling it now. Even if he did campaign more in the city, he would have been shut down by precinct captains paid by Hillary...I'm sorry, given money by the Clinton campaign to ease the financial difficulties of volunteers who aided. :sarcasm:

[book_worm]

5. I agree in a way. He should have really concentrated more on Philly and the burbs

one rally in seven weeks in Philly? While he did well getting 65% of the vote. If he had pushed that up to 70 or even 75% he would have come close to winning the state. But I can see him trying to campaign elsewhere too.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. fyi, as of today, there are still 40 precincts not counted in Philly nt

[flpoljunkie]

10. Very interesting. Do you know why they have not yet been counted?

[Barack_America]

17. My guess is provisionals.

There are thousands of provisionals in Philly.

The Board of Elections was essentially throwing away voter registrations at the end to meet the deadline.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

21. So they'd hold the hard vote and report it all at once with the provisionals?

[Barack_America]

33. Unlikely. It looks like they were having machine troubles.

Now those machines are "reporting" what I don't know is if they reported anything. The provisionals will come later.

But remember in NM, how they held up the count for provisionals?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

20. no - can't find anything yet. I looked in the Philly papers - man

you would think 40 uncounted precincts would warrant at least a little blurb.

[Barack_America]

22. They've reported now.

Only thing left now are the provisionals, which I hope the Obama campaign is still fighting for, considering we registered these folks.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. WHAT ?? How can this be? 40 precincts in Philly and it didn't

even budge the decimals one bit? This is weird because I remember when they were
at 99.03, I believe, and think the gap was 8.6%. Then it shoots to 99.44 and
the gap jumps to 9.2% Then they add 40 precincts and it stays at 9.2. Weird
have to look at the actual numbers - wish I had done that when it was 8.6

[Barack_America]

28. It depends where the precincts were from.

If it were a mixture of NE Philly and West Philly, they could cancel each other out.

I'll eventually request the full results from the Board of Elections.

[Barack_America]

8. .

This is what happened.

He intended to camp in Philly in the last days of the election. But instead he had to go soothe rural whites after the "bitter" BS.

He was in West Philly on election day.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xatvpxldF4U

Should he have been there more? Yes.

Did he want to be there more? Yes.

Could he afford to be there more to embrace his black supporters? No.

Why? I'll let you tell me.

[Tatiana]

11. I think you're absolutely correct.

Before the faux-controversy of bittergate, the Obama team seemed prepared to camp out in Philly. The rural vote would have been even worse, IMO, if he hadn't gotten out there. Besides, we'll need those rural voters in the general election when Obama is the nominee.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

24. You're right - he was between a rock and a hard place in PA

I bet if he won Philly by more of a landslide - they'd be trashing him
for only winning inner city votes.

Damn, it's so unfair - why aren't they trashing Hillary for not
being able to capture the votes in major cities?

[northzax]

7. imagine if he had

and still lost? why put anything on the line? He hasn't yet, and isn't about to start now. it's the strangest campaign I have seen in a long time. Everytime there is a potential knockout punch, he doesn't take the chance. He could have gone all in in Pennsylvania, and if he'd beaten her, this race would be over today.

by the way, I don't think Hillary has done much of a job of going into states Obama will win, either. It's just that she's stronger in the big states.

[Barack_America]

12. What if he did that and still didn't win?

How do you think white racist voters in the state would've done if he had been all over Philly embracing his *shudder* blackness? If his white support had gone down to 30%, what would that have done to his chances for the nomination, even if he had pulled out a win in PA? You think that Clinton wouldn't have gone running to the SDs with that?

That's the real story of the Pennsylvania election. In order to win PA, he had to risk losing the entire nomination.

[northzax]

15. so, how do you figure the math works in November?

if he has to choose between the White racists in the country and black communities in the cities? doesn't that kind of rule out winning, well, pretty much every northern or midwestern state?

[Barack_America]

16. It's not an issue in the Midwest.

Racism is not as big of an issue there. FYI, Ohio is the "blacksheep" of the Midwest, at best.

In the general election, I expect "blue collar whites" to vote for their economic survival. If their reluctance to vote for a black man is more important to them than their families and communities, so be it. Our country will get what it deserves.

[izzybeans]

9. Yeah no one ever saw Obama in Philly.

:sarcasm:

[Barack_America]

14. I saw him three times in Philly.

All from a distance of 20 feet or less. Got to shake his hand.

I'm not complaining.

And yes, he did finally come to my neighborhood, when it was "safe" (read: not offensive to racist whites) to do so. I'm glad he did. He hasn't forgotten us. He WILL be back in the general election.

Here's the video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xatvpxldF4U

[JackORoses]

13. he netted 130,000 votes out of Philly...that's 30,000 more than they had hoped for

[SoCalDem]

18. Rendell was positively BEAMING yesterday (as was the newsette)

because he SUCCEEDED in "holding down" the vote in Philly..

translation:

making it physically DIFFICULT for poor inner city people to vote..

really something to be proud of, eh? eddie? :puke:

[THUNDER HANDS]

26. he's going to win

really...this is moot. Hillary is the dead parrot sketch of presidential candidates. She's just resting, says Rendell.

[BeyondGeography]

27. Damned if you do, damned if you don't

If he was perceived as overemphasizing Philly, he would have been accused of giving up on the small-town white vote. By spending more time with them than the final outcome appears to have warranted, he's guilty of a tactical error.

I think part of the reasoning was also for the GE. At least he got to introduce himself across the state, which should help him in November. There won't be any time for bowling in Altoona in the fall.

[olkaz]

29. A Clinton Campaign Staffer Criticizing the Obama Campaign? HAHAHAHAHAHA

Are you f'ing kidding me? The WORST-RAN campaign in recent history has the gall to tell one of the best-ran campaigns in recent history that they made a mistake?

Lord, this thing is gets funnier and funnier.

[flowomo]

30. did you miss this part of the OP:

But state Sen. Anthony Williams, an ardent Obama supporter, said he was hoping for a superlative turnout.

"To get that kind of turnout, maybe he should have spent time on 52nd Street, and 63rd Street, and Allegheny, and Cecil B. Moore," Williams said.

"I saw young white voters energized, but there are a lot of young black people in the neighborhoods, 18, 20, 21 years old, and if he'd shown up more in those streets, we might have seen them more energized," Williams said.

[olkaz]

31. Oh I know, and I'm not saying it was a mistake.

It's just that hearing it from the campaign of the nominee who was up by 30+ points nationally seven months ago makes me laugh.

[zulchzulu]

32. Could it be that the Obama campaign knew Philly was covered...

...and they wanted to work on other parts of the state?

What good would multiple rallies have been in Philly. It costs the city lots of money as well as other parts of the state needed to be addressed.

Obama did shave 16% off the 25+% lead that Clinton had...