My Town Turns Blue
The local fishwrap reports that Centre County, where I live, officially has more registered Democrats than Republicans for the first time in more than 30 years. While this makes me sad, I am hardly ready to pack up and move to redder territory. First of all, I acknowledged the general "blueness" in my inaugural post on this blog, and the title itself pays homage to the principle that I'm surrounded by idiots Democrats at all times anyhow.
But more importantly, I am confident that this surge does not reflect any sort of political paradigm shift among residents of central PA. To its credit, the article I linked, at the very bottom, points toward the trend of formerly registered Republicans switching parties due to Pennsylvania's "closed" primary system, in order to make waves for Democrats come November. Where would anyone get a silly idea like that?
Finally, the state of the primary election has played a big role in this shift too. If the Democrat ticket had been set by now, like the Republican one has, who would be rushing out to register to "have their voices heard"? You can bet that, if the situation were reversed and, say, Mike Huckabee and John McCain were neck-and-neck right now, while Hillary was sitting comfortably at the top of the Dem ticket, Centre County would be solidly red yet again.
I'm not worried about this come election time, though. Once past the primary, central PA will once again become unimportant "flyover country", and all those riled-up college students who turned out for various Clinton or Hussein-Obama rallies in town the last couple weeks will once again become lazy, disaffected, indolent losers like they always were when there wasn't some charismatic speaker to tell them how special they were. Hillary or Obama's suicidal 20% will stay home or switch sides, El Rushbo's Army of Chaos will properly revert and vote McCain, and things will be just peachy. I must say, I'm more enthused about the GOP's presidential prospects in November than I have been in a very long time.
But more importantly, I am confident that this surge does not reflect any sort of political paradigm shift among residents of central PA. To its credit, the article I linked, at the very bottom, points toward the trend of formerly registered Republicans switching parties due to Pennsylvania's "closed" primary system, in order to make waves for Democrats come November. Where would anyone get a silly idea like that?
Finally, the state of the primary election has played a big role in this shift too. If the Democrat ticket had been set by now, like the Republican one has, who would be rushing out to register to "have their voices heard"? You can bet that, if the situation were reversed and, say, Mike Huckabee and John McCain were neck-and-neck right now, while Hillary was sitting comfortably at the top of the Dem ticket, Centre County would be solidly red yet again.
I'm not worried about this come election time, though. Once past the primary, central PA will once again become unimportant "flyover country", and all those riled-up college students who turned out for various Clinton or Hussein-Obama rallies in town the last couple weeks will once again become lazy, disaffected, indolent losers like they always were when there wasn't some charismatic speaker to tell them how special they were. Hillary or Obama's suicidal 20% will stay home or switch sides, El Rushbo's Army of Chaos will properly revert and vote McCain, and things will be just peachy. I must say, I'm more enthused about the GOP's presidential prospects in November than I have been in a very long time.
Labels: politics
posted by Benjamin at 9:34 AM
3 Comments:
A lot of Republicans have switched from the GOP to Dems for tactical reasons, as you mention. Others have become Independants due to their dissatisfaction with the RNC and Bush, but many of those are unhappy because McCain or Bush are not conservative enough.
We're either going to win this election with a moderate Republican, or Obama will screw things up sufficiently to guarantee those numbers will reverse.
While I'm not as optimistic as you, Ben, I think the Republicans have a good shot. But if they don't get it, the Republicans are going to have to learn really fast how to be good in opposition, better than they've been the last two years with a lame duck to help shore up their spines.
I listened to a radio piece yesterday (on NPR!) about how maybe Hillary or Obama would have to think a little bit about raising the capital gains tax. Not such a good idea, either for the economy or for the middle class, more and more of whom have stock investments. So maybe they're just making noise. Maybe they haven't thought it through. Maybe they'll find a way to increase capital gains taxes only on the rich. Or maybe, as is usually the case with Democrats, they don't have a clue about economics and would do something this stupid out of their own benighted principles.
The only ones crazy enough, come November, to vote for Hillobama over McCain were Ron Paul supporters to start with. The ones that stay home are perhaps more worrisome, and I think it's incumbent on all of those who see the Democrat machine for what it is need to stress the importance of getting out to vote to them.
As for Capital Gains taxes, that would certainly be a good reason to vote for McCain -- especially if I were vulnerable to such a tax. One needs, I suppose, some investment capital before one can be taxed on the gains on that capital. Oh well -- at least with inflation getting higher, my debt will quickly become a much smaller portion of my income! (Assuming my employers at least keep up with COLAs on my salary each year -- which is a pretty ill-founded assumption).
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