The five stages of Pennsylvania ...

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Anger ...  I think Obama ran a piss-poor campaign in Pennsylvania.  I am really angry that he didn’t take my advice.  I am convinced that he could have done much better here and that his campaign organization wasn’t.  Living here, I kept thinking that his campaign just didn’t get off the ground.  Where is that amazing Obama ground game?  Why isn’t he here?  This is what he has won so many states with?

I have been saying for over two months that Pittsburgh is the key to Pennsylvania.  I got there by being a politics junkie, by reading, watching, and observing.  I go the whole gamut from conservative to liberal.  I want to see what both sides are thinking.  I dismiss the views that don’t fit the puzzle I work to assemble.  Don’t we all do this?  “Clinton will dominate in the conservative “Alabama” region of Pennsylvania”.  That fits with what I have seen.  That is her demographic, or at least the one she is pandering to.  “Obama will dominate Philadelphia”.  That fits.  Obama’s main demographic is the large black population.

“Pittsburgh is the ‘swing’ region of the state”.  That fit my gut feeling so I accepted this hypothesis and thought more about it.  I have lived in Pittsburgh for the past 18 years.  Yes, Clinton has done well with Catholics in other states and Pittsburgh is heavily Catholic.  I teach at a Catholic university actually.  Pittsburgh is blue-collar moderate Democrats. Lots of Eastern Europeans.  The local political establishment is behind her.  But, there are a lot of Obama demographic groups here also. There was a lot to work with.  There is a large African-American population.  There are a lot of colleges ... 33 to be exact with over 100,000 students.  To educate those students, there are a lot of intellectual, academic types, the faculty and staff of all those schools.  They love Obama.  Pittsburgh has a huge medical community and is practically synonymous with the word “transplant”.  A large percentage of the local jobs are due to this medical establishment.  There is a growing high-tech industry.  The arts are well and good in Pittsburgh.  I strongly felt that for Obama to do well regionally, he had to focus on issues that appeal to the intellectual establishment, using an undercurrent of economics – science funding, job growth, and the environment.  With over one-fourth of the Pennsylvania voter in western PA, well, you do the math ....

But, this isn’t really why I am so angry.  I’m angry because it seemed that he really didn’t get going in Pittsburgh until very late in the six weeks between Mississippi and Pennsylvania.  I’m angry because what I saw of the Obama machine here was anything but well-oiled and it certainly wasn’t polished.  It seemed that they were following a script that was written long before and for another state.  Everything seemed to be too-little, too-late.  They didn’t know what to do with the six-week gap.  They started the voter registration only in earnest in the last week before the deadline.  And, why did I get a text message to phone my friends to get out there and vote .... at 7:22 PM?????

The head of the Pittsburgh campaign headquarters was a sarcastic and unfriendly clod who didn’t seem to appreciate the efforts of those who were working so hard.  He meted out the buttons only to “volunteers” but not to people who brought in donations or housed the “real volunteers”.  (Please sir, I’d like some more).

And, I did volunteer.  I did what I was told.  But, I just didn’t see the point of canvassing in Baldwin and Clairton five hours before the polls closed.  This was the get-out-the-vote effort to supposedly contact known Obama supporters to get them to the polls.  Then why were 40% of the people I contacted obviously not going to vote for my candidate?  Why did I get so many, “I’m not voting for that ****.”  Was I getting the vote out for Hillary or Barack?

Oh, I know that I haven’t done much campaigning in my life.  This is the first time actually so maybe I was expecting too much.  But, a friend corroborated my opinion by saying that this was one of the poorest national campaigns he had volunteered for.  He agreed with the “too-little, too-late” theory I have.  And, when Bob Casey came to my campaign office and said, ~Hey guys, we really appreciate your efforts.  When it gets down to the wire and you see the polls saying we are way behind, don’t get frustrated.  Keep going because it is really important.~  Well, I appreciate Senator Casey’s coming to our little office and absolutely love him as a Senator but ... the message was clear that we weren’t going to do as well as we hoped.  And, when I saw Bill Clinton at my polling place, pumping the flesh ... all I could say is, “Oh, shit”.

(Sign).  Anger turns to depression.