Chris Palko's blog

One of the overlooked downsides to the electoral wipeout the Republican Party has endured in the past two election cycles is how those elections have drastically shrunk the amount of Republicans who are nationally prominent.  Without the Presidency, and the loss of Governors, Senators, and Representatives, there aren't very many potential leaders left among Republicans.  Also, even the most loyal party man surely isn't enamored with every Republican elected official.  What you hear these days is a cry wondering where Republican leadership is.  Debates about who is the "leader" of the Republican Party are distracting at this point, but there seems to be a paucity of those who could even be in the discussion.  Republicans have a short bench problem, which hurts their ability to have national leadership in Congress, in the states, and in the future, in the White House.

Governors

In the 1990s, Republican Governors (along with some big city mayors) were instrumental in making public policy changes that would eventually be successful at the national level.  Part of the reason why Bush's 2000 campaign was successful was because he made himself the custodian of the achievements that Tommy Thompson, John Engler, Rudy Giuliani, and even Bush as Governor achieved.

There are 22 Republican Governors at the moment.  What is more distressing is how few innovative leaders there are among Republican Governors.  Many Republican Governors are governors of small Plains or Rocky Mountain States that are invisible on a national stage.  There is surprising vitality in New England with three GOP governors, but they are generally too moderate for the national Republican Party.  Two standouts who deserve some national attention are John Hoeven from North Dakota and Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island.  Hoeven was reelected last year with 74 percent of the vote when McCain only received 53 percent.  National Republicans have begged him to challenge the state's two Democratic Senators.  Carcieri somehow managed to be elected twice as an actual conservative in one of the most liberal states in the country.  Neither is of Presidential timber, but they could be excellent future Senatorial candidates or national Republican voices.

Some Governors have been failures (Schwarzenegger), some are good for their state but too moderate nationally (other New England governors, perhaps Crist), some have just been installed in the past year, and at least one is too busy in Argentina to be taken seriously.  I would say there is a handful of top tier Republican Governors at this point.  Bobby Jindal, by his own acknowledgment, is too green to make any moves yet.  John Huntsman is certainly a formidable figure, but he also is a more long-term hope considering he will be Ambassador to China for the next few years.  Haley Barbour has generally been a successful Governor of Mississippi and could fill the Southern slot in a primary.  Tim Pawlenty has been a rare blue state Republican in recent years.  I think he is likely to be a 2012 candidate and would be considered a top contender if he ran.  The crown jewel, in my opinion, is Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana.  He's probably the best Republican politican in America right now.  Earning nearly 60 percent of the vote last year when Obama won Indiana indicates he has some crossover appeal.  He claims that he is not interested in seeking higher office, which is a real shame.

Senators

Republicans have lost 15 Senate seats in the past three years.  This attrition clears out opportunites for Republicans to come up with national leaders.  The 40 Republicans left are bereft of national figures.  McConnell is a master floor manager but no national spokesman.  McCain is a real leader, but his national campaign days are over.  The GOP caucus is dominated by Southern good ol' boys and small state senators.  Guys from Wyoming or Idaho won't find national traction and the good ol' boys are better vote jockeys than communicators.

I would say the following Senators are, or could be, good national leaders for Republicans: John Kyl, Judd Gregg, Tom Coburn, Jim DeMint, John Thune, and Bob Corker.  Coburn and DeMint already are good conservative voices in the Senate, but would never be Presidential material.  Kyl does a good job on Judiciary, but is somewhat in the shadow of McCain.  To my mind Gregg has been the most articulate Senator in the past year, but he always indicates that he wants to retire.  Corker is still a freshman, but was the point man for GOP efforts on the car bailouts.  Thune is also a freshman, but is the youngest Republican Senator by a mile.  There are virtually no 2012 Presidential candidates in the Senate.  I believe this is why Ensign was trying to run for President before his affair was disclosed.  Of the entire Republican Senatorial membership, I could only see Thune having a serious campaign in 2012.

Others

Members of the House of Representatives are not national leaders (Speaker of the House exempted).  Impressive Representatives like Paul Ryan and Mike Pence would need to become Senators or Governors to have a real shot at the Presidency.  If Jack Kemp couldn't win the nomination from the House, then I don't think any non-Speaker would be able to.

Of course, there are still the retired political figures and those who were candidates last time.  Romney seems a near lock to run again and would have to be considered the frontrunner.  Huckabee will never be President, but he may run, especially if no Southerner is in the race.  I think Palin's resignation indicates she won't run in 2012, but she still is young and already has a big national following.  I don't think we'll see another Wesley Clark/Fred Thompson fantasy candidate next time.

Conclusion

The Republican bench is very thin at this point.  If you are looking towards 2012, I would predict right now the only serious candidates who will run are Romney, Pawlenty, and Barbour.  Daniels would certainly be in that grouping if he decided to run.  Sure, you would get the Tom Tancredos of the world running no shot campaigns, but those candidacies are irrelevant.  I think beyond 2012 Jindal, Huntsman, Thune, and perhaps Palin 2.0 would be serious Presidential candidates.  There really is a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party right now.  A smart, ambitious Republican could certainly find an easy path to the top.

For a while, I thought that newspaper endorsements were irrelevant, that most people didn't care what a bunch of editorial staff writers thought.  For general election Presidential contests, I think this is still true.  This is the case in most state and local general elections as well.

But I do think that newspaper endorsements are valuable in primary elections, depending upon the ideological orientation of the editorial page.  The Washington Post's endorsement of Creigh Deeds may have been the spark that got him the momentum to wallop Terry McAuliffe.  It's no secret that the Post has a liberal editorial page (though less reflexively liberal than the New York Times).  For its Northern Virginia readers, especially in the Democratic enclaves of Arlington and Alexandria, the Post is a very influential political and cultural authority.  Previous to the Post endorsement, Deeds was sort of an obscure, rural Democrat who would seem to have real problems competing in NoVa with McLean based McAuliffe and Alexandria native Moran.  But once the Post gave their seal of approval to Deeds, he became acceptable to NoVa liberals, not to mention a source of curiosity as reflected in the Google search spike Patrick has highlighted.  I guess Democratic primary voters liked what they saw in Deeds.

I think a comparable analogue in recent years was the Manchester Union-Leader's endorsement of John McCain in December 2007.  As you may recall, McCain was left for dead in the summer of 2007 after the failure of Amnesty part two.  McCain never left the race and changed to a scaled down campaign.  After problems with the Giuliani campaign began showing up, McCain had the opportunity to win the 40-45% of the Republican primary voters that shifted between Giuliani and McCain.  Starting in November, McCain began coming back from the dead as many voters were willing to give McCain another chance in light of other campaigns falling apart.

The Union-Leader is perhaps the most influential conservative editorial page in the country behind the Wall Street Journal.  This outsized influence was due to New Hampshire's first in the nation primary and the low tax advocacy by the Loeb family, owners of the paper.  To put it mildly, the Union-Leader has credibility with New Hampshire conservatives.  So when they came out for McCain, it elevated him to serious contender in New Hampshire, and soon after, the rest of the country.

The common element with both endorsements is that they were in primary elections and they were made by papers with well known ideological slants.  Their endorsements were influential because members of each party's ideological base trusted that paper's editorial page as an arbiter of good political sense.  By contrast, the Union-Leader's general election endorsement was virtually meaningless, considering that anyone who likes the Union-Leader was already voting for McCain, while those who didn't wouldn't pay attention anyway.  I suspect that the Post's nearly certain general election endorsement will not have much of an impact either.

I can't really express much outrage over Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to change his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.  He grew up as a Democrat, but became a Republican in the mid-1960s to run for Philadelphia District Attorney.  Specter is the archtype of the career politician.  For better or for worse, he sticks his finger in the air and determines his beliefs on that basis.  So I really don't care about the whole psychological drama of what Arlen Specter is thinking any given moment, because he is usually reacting, not thinking (this can be for good or for bad, by the way).

What I care more about is what this means.  It's certainly not everyday that a United States Senator changes their party.  It is big news when it occurs, and deservedly so.  You expect a senator to be among the strongest partisans in the country.  If that's not the case, we should examine what this means.

What I am most interested in is whether Specter's ideological orientation will change.  I don't think he has any real ideological beliefs, but it should be worth watching if he stays in the middle like he was as a Republican, or he will pull a Jim Jeffords, going from a moderate to a down the line liberal.  If he stays the same, the change is pretty meaningless.  If he shifts left, then it is a real loss for conservatives.

Of course, this clears the way for Democrats to have a Parliamentary style power.  If they get 60 votes to invoke cloture (Franken will be a Senator soon), then there will be no real check on whatever Democrats want to do.  There hasn't been this sort of undivided control since the Great Society Congress in 1965-66.  We could expect the modern equivalent of the passage of Great Society legislation.

This does have real significance because it speaks to a concern about the Republican Party in 2009: How can it have any reach beyond the conservative base?  I'm a conservative.  I don't need to be convinced to vote Republican.  But I realize that I am not like most people.  The majority of Americans will consider voting for both parties to some degree.  In the past 4-5 years, the persuadable majority have been persuaded to stay away from Republicans in masse.  I think the reason for this is the failure of the conservative movement under the Bush Presidency.  It may take us a while to get beyond what Jon Henke quite accurately termed a movement failure.

Today is the first day of CPAC at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington DC.  I attended today from roughly 9:30 to 1:30.  Here are my observations:

• Most interesting development of the day.  Both Paul Ryan and Steve Moore advocated restoring the gold standard.  Before today, I didn't know of mainstream "movement" type conservatives who were advocating fixing the currency.  I guess the influence of Ron Paul is growing.
• Michael Barone drew upon his extensive knowledge of the political realm to offer advice on what conservatives need to do to win again.  One obvious focus was on the youth vote.  Another idea was to exploit the tensions within the Obama coalition--a top-bottom coalition with varying goals and priorities.  If a new Obama proposal to repeal tax deductions on charitable donations is passed, then it would adversely affect the affluent voters that gave Obama strong support.
• I didn't really care for Saul Anuzis' quip that there are two kinds of people, "Democrats and Americans."  That approach is surely the road back to majority status.  The rest of his talk was fine, but that tone will only appeal to the already converted.
• 27 year old Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock was very impressive.  He already could artiiculate his beliefs better than many long time veterans.  He also advocated for expanding conservative outreach to places we don't go, like black and Hispanic communities.  He should have a bright future.
• Last speech I saw was Mike Pence, who got the crowd on its feet the most because he hit the applause lines very hard.  There will be no backing down on Pence and the House Republican caucus's part.  He said that "Republicans will be faithful and loyal in our opposition.
• I also had the pleasure of meeting Rob Willington, director of Rebuild the Party, in line at Chipotle.  It is nice to meet people who you only see online.

The next two days will be busier, so I imagine there will be better things to report back.

Lessons Learned

After completing Parts One and Two about how Pennsylvania's two major metropolitan areas are shifting politically, there are some lessons we can learn from the past election.

Republicans have precious few areas where they can run up large margins.  One thing I consistently found looking at municipal level data across two divergent metropolitan areas is a lack of high population areas that Republicans dominate.  It is true that Republicans excel in some areas.  But they are either sparsely populated rural areas or exurban developments without significant population yet.  By contrast, Democrats can count on many highly populated places to give them large margins.  Democrats have traditionally been the party of the cities, so it is no surprise that they run up huge vote totals there.  Republicans were traditionally able to counter this by similarly large rural margins, and impressive suburban totals.  These days however, the ability for Republicans to win big votes in the suburbs isn't there.

The Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas are stand-ins for two types of political regions and how their politics are shifting.  The Philadelphia area represents the swing of the college-educated and non-whites towards Democrats.  The same phenomenon has happened in Northern Virginia, Long Island, suburban Chicago, St. Louis County, and even Orange County.  If you wonder why Republicans are shut out nationally, it is because their candidates are receiving 45 percent of the vote in Nassau County, 40 percent in Fairfax County, and 42 percent in Dallas County.  McCain barely broke 50 percent in Orange County, the living embodiment of Reagan's America!

The Pittsburgh area represents the swing of non-college educated whites towards Republicans.  Western Pennsylvania is an ancillary part of the one section of the country that has moved towards Republicans, the Interior South.  Western Pennsylvania is quite obviously not part of the South, and most of the areas I described in Part Two wouldn't be classified as part of Appalachia (I left those counties out).  But it does share some cultural affinities with the South.  After all, who was Obama talking about when he made his "bitter clinger" speech?  He should have known that even prosperous suburbanites in suburban Pittsburgh go hunting.  This countercyclical direction reminds me of Western Pennsylvania's turn towards national Democrats such as Mondale and Dukakis, even as they were getting slaughtered nationwide.

What is really disquieting for the future is that, at least in 2008, the Republican Party is on the losing side of demographic change.  On paper, you would prefer to have the Philadelphia Metro area swinging your way rather than the Pittsburgh Metro area coming your way.  Part of this preference is based upon the Philadelphia area's greater diversity.  Compare the non-white population in each of these counties in 2000:

Philadelphia Metro:

• Delaware County: 21.2%
• Montgomery County: 15.6%
• Bucks County: 12.5%
• Chester County: 14.5%

Pittsburgh Metro:

• Allegheny County: 16.5%
• Westmoreland County: 3.9%
• Butler County: 2.8%
• Washington County: 5.3%
• Beaver County: 8.2%

Keep in mind that in the interceding nine years, these percentages have only increased in Metro Philadelphia, and have not declined in Metro Pittsburgh.  The era of monolithically white suburbs not only is over, but has been over for some time.  The Republican Party has not adapted to that reality.  It has only been able to keep pace in areas with little diversity.  By some measures, the Pittsburgh area has the lowest percentage of Hispanics of any major metropolitan area in the country.  My high school, right north of the city limits of Pittsburgh, was 95 percent white.  A similar school in suburban Philadelphia would certainly have more minorities.

In the Philadelphia area, the Republican Party does best with those who are middle-class and above.  This is to say that once you reach a certain income level, roughly $50,000 household income in 2000, income cannot predict how you will vote.  There is great fluctuation between different communities, with some municipalities at a certain income level casting 60 percent of their votes for McCain and others giving him 30 percent.  A better way to view the Republican Party in the Philadelphia area is to view it as the The Party of the Periphery, only strong in semi-rural areas outside most suburban development.

In the Pittsburgh area, the Republican Party is strongest with the upper-middle class.  Western Pennsylvania follows a more traditional pattern where the more money you have, generally the more likely you are to be Republican.  It is not quite as steep a divide as it would have been 50 years ago and rich areas like Fox Chapel are immune to this, but Pittsburgh's suburban bourgeoisie is instinctively Republican.  In Allegheny County, McCain earned over 60 percent of the vote in the following municipalities: Pine Township, Sewickley Heights, Richland Township, Marshall Township, Franklin Park, and Bradford Woods.  With the exception of wealthy Sewickley Heights, these areas are all certainly upper-middle class.  They are also all adjoining to each other, part of either the North Allegheny or Pine-Richland School Districts in the North Hills.  Compare them to communities of similar incomes in the Philadelphia area; for instance, the municipalities making up the Council Rock School District.  The five municipalities that comprise Council Rock gave McCain the following percentages: 57 percent, 53 percent, 46 percent, 52 percent, and 43 percent.  While a series of neighboring communities in the Pittsburgh area votes more or less the same, a similar set of communities in suburban Philadelphia show little coherence in their voting patterns.

There is not one simple strategy for Republicans to reconnect with Pennsylvania voters.  Some think that the party needs to moderate on social issues, because they are killing GOP prospects in moderate suburbs.  In the case of the Philadelphia suburbs, I think this is true.  But outside of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Republican stands on social issues gain more votes than they lose.  Pennsylvania is a very open state on cultural issues, with any non-radical/reactionary approach being electorally viable.  Similarly, some conservatives advocate a move towards a very populist Republican Party that has no truck for "elites".  It would be a mass movement of "the people", meaning non-educated professionals.  This also wouldn't help, as it would finish off the Republican Party in the Philadelphia area while perhaps reversing the Republican advantage among Pittsburgh suburbanites.  A Republican Party that draws its base more narrow will only create a larger Democratic Party.  A Republican Revival is not a simple matter of ditching issues or eschewing certain constituencies.

What I take out of the past election is that the traditional shape of Pennsylvania politics is gone.  For over a century, Chester County was part of any winning Republican coalition.  The idea that a Republican could lose Chester County and even be remotely competitive would've been fanciful.  Likewise, since the New Deal, Beaver County was part of a Democratic winning coalition.  Only perceived radicals like McGovern could prevent residents from punching their tickets for Democrats.  But traditonal allegiances have been shed.  It seems as though certain groups of people can never be part of the same party in a two-party system (The South and New England have never been together in any party system).  Now, the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has gone from being the party of The Philadelphia Story to the party of The Deerhunter.

The Pittsburgh Metro Area

Allegheny County: Population (2000): 1,281,666, McCain 2008 Percentage: 41.6%

Allegheny County is the most populous county in Western Pennsylvania, containing the City of Pittsburgh and the majority of its suburbs.  Pittsburgh has roughly one-fourth of the county's population and because of it, Allegheny County is almost always Democratic.  McCain did slightly worse than Bush in 2004, but only by about one percentage point.  Pittsburgh has been unthinkingly Democratic since the Great Depression and nothing in the future looks to change that.

The longest developed and most densely populated corridor of the county is the area to the east of the city, and is mostly a Democratic area.  Penn Hills, the second largest municipality in Southwestern Pennsylvania, is nearly 2 to 1 Democratic.  Monroeville is a middle-class suburb that Obama narrowly won.  The most Republican part of this area is Plum Township, a partly rural area that gave McCain 56 percent of the vote.

To the direct south is the Monongahela Valley, perhaps the embodiment of the Rust Belt.  There are river communities that have less than half the residents they had fifty years ago.  The Mon Valley went in two different directions in the past election.  The municipalities with large African-American populations were among the places that moved towards Obama.  Places like Duquesne, McKeesport, Clairton, and Braddock only increased their heavy Democratic tilt.  But other municipalities went the other way.  Some of the greatest Republican increases occured in the Mon Valley.  McCain ran nearly nine points better than Bush did in 2004 in Port Vue and eight points better in Glassport.  There has been a noticable change among some in the Mon Valley.

West of the Mon Valley is the South Hills, Pittsburgh's southern suburbs.  These suburbs are on balance Republican, but with definite variations.  The suburbs adjoining to Pittsburgh, like Mt. Lebanon and Baldwin, are narrowly Democratic.  Mt. Lebanon is a distressing case for Republicans, as it is one of the richest suburbs in the area.  To the south, middle-class Bethel Park gave McCain about 55 percent of the vote.  Upper St. Clair, which is very affluent, is still strongly Republican, but did experience a bit of a decline since last election.  One success story was in Jefferson Hills, a middle-class suburb that experienced a four percent bump for McCain.

Continuing clockwise, the western suburbs are the least developed part of the county, containing solid middle-class suburbs in the shadows of Pittsburgh International Airport.  Like most of Pittsburgh's suburbs, they are marginally Republican.  The story here is how static the vote was in the area.  The largest suburbs, like Moon, Findlay, and North Fayette Townships were within a point of 2004 voting patterns.  McCain did show slight improvement in Robinson Township and had a strong increase in Kennedy Township, a first-tier suburb.

Finally, there is the large swath of land north of the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers.  There is a northwest quadrant composed of river towns and the millionaire colony in Sewickley Heights.  Sewickley Heights gave McCain 66 percent of the vote, a great total until you realize that Bush received 71 percent four years ago.  The river towns are now swing territory, which is a Republican accomplishment in itself.  They showed no real trend as compared to 2004.  A similar northeast quadrant is based around the baronial estates of Fox Chapel and other smaller communities.  Fox Chapel, the wealthiest community in Pennsylvania west of the Main Line, was home to the biggest Republican decline over the past four years.  There was a near eight point drop-off in four years.  This is in line with the general Republican decline with the wealthy.

Most of the population north of the rivers is part of the North Hills.  The first-tier suburbs of Ross and Shaler are slightly Republican and showed no change over four years.  The farther out, upper-middle class suburbs are more Republican.  For example, Pine and Marshall Townships are over 60 percent Republican, but were about three percent less Republican than 2004.  Here, we do see some slippage among the affluent like everywhere else in the country, but not as dramatic as the Philadelphia area.

The Philadelphia Metro Area

For over a century, the Philadelphia area was one of the strongholds of the Republican Party.  In the time period between the Civil War and the New Deal, Southeastern Pennsylvania produced margins that made Pennsylvania an overwhelmingly Republican state.  After the New Deal, Philadelphia's Republican machine switched to a Democratic machine, but the collar counties surrounding Philadelphia remained Republican all the way through the Reagan era.

Over the last twenty years, suburban Philadelphia has shifted from being predominately Republican to increasingly Democratic.  While I have my explanations for what accounts for this change, for now I am focusing on the data, not policy recommendations.  What I aim to do is to perform a detailed electoral analysis of each of the four counties outside Philadelphia.

Delaware County: Population (2000): 550,864, Bush 1988 Percentage: 59.9%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 38.8%

Delaware County is one of the smallest counties in Pennsylvania, adjoining to South and West Philadelphia.  The core components of the county are a) small, first-tier boroughs near the City line, b) depressed Chester and surrounding municipalities, c) upper-middle class suburban townships, and d) wealthy Main Line communities like Radnor and Haverford Townships.

John McCain only won lighter populated townships in the western part of the county, and by small margins.  McCain's best municipality in the county only gave him 56.3 percent of the vote.  He defeated Barack Obama in only 9 of the county's 49 municipalities.  What is worse is McCain's performance in the Delaware County portion of the Main Line.  Radnor and Haverford are two of the four largest municipalities in the county and were the definition of the Republican Party for over one hundred years.  No more.  McCain could earn no more than 40 percent of the vote in these communities.  McCain also lost slightly less prosperous suburban townships like Ridley and Nether Providence.

Not all Republicans fared as bad as McCain did.  Tom Corbett, the Attorney General, ran about 10 points ahead of McCain in the Philadelphia area.  I am using Corbett's performance as a comparison to show what a minimum winning Republican coalition looks like in the collar counties.  Corbett was able to win the Main Line and the rest of the suburbs outside of Chester and the boroughs immediately outside Philadelphia.  Corbett was able to win 30 of the 49 municipalities, including every major township except for first-tier Upper Darby Township.

Montgomery County: Population (2000): 750,097, Bush 1988 Percentage: 60.2%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 39.2%

Montgomery County is the largest of the suburban Philadelphia counties.  Montgomery County features long established inner suburbs like Abington and Cheltenham Townships.  The south and west axis of the county is the Schuylkill River, which runs through county seat Norristown before forming the border between Montgomery County and Chester County.  A portion of the Main Line exists in Lower Merion and Narbeth.  The northeastern corner of the county is exurban, developing within the past two decades.

Republicans have been pushed to the periphery in recent years: only Upper Montgomery away from the Schuylkill River is reliably Republican anymore.  McCain won only 11 of 62 municipalities in Montgomery County.  He lost the 23 most populated municipalities in the county, failing to win a municipality with more than 13,000 people.  This was a disaster for the McCain campaign.

As with Delaware County, McCain had an abysmal performance on the Main Line.  Lower Merion Township is the richest and largest municipality in the county, and McCain won a measly 29 percent of the vote there.  Even Corbett could only get 39 percent of the vote, showing how far away they have drifted from the Republican Party.  This produces a vote deficit so large that almost no Republican can overcome it.  Even upper-middle class suburbia found in such entities as the North Penn School District are now lost to Republicans.  Corbett was able to roughly split this crucial grouping of communities; McCain averaged only about 40 percent.

Bucks County: Population (2000): 597,635, Bush 1988 Percentage: 60.0%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 45.2%

Bucks County was the least traditionally Republican of these counties, possessing a strong Democratic Party post-WWII due to the presence of a Levittown in Lower Bucks.  But now, Bucks County is the most Republican of the collar counties.  In the past three elections, the Republican presidential candidate earned between 45-46 percent of the vote.

Lower Bucks is predominately Democratic, though not overwhelmingly so.  Places like Bensalem, Bristol, and Falls Townships, which are essentially North Northeast Philadelphia, are the most Democratic areas.  Middle Bucks is centered on Doylestown and the surrounding suburban townships.  This is the swing area of the county and Obama's victory was earned here.  Corbett was able to earn about 58 percent in the area made up of the sprawling Central Bucks School District.  Upper Bucks is now the most reliably Republican area in Metro Philadelphia.  McCain was able to win nearly all of the townships there, but the margins aren't enough to offset gains in the middle of the county.

There is more hope for Republicans in Bucks County than in any other of the counties mentioned here.  The drop-off in the Bush years was insignificant, even as other collar counties turned away from Republican candidates in droves.  One advantage with Bucks is that there is nowhere in the county that is really poor.  The major town, Doylestown, is mostly middle-class, making it much more affluent than, say, Chester or Norristown.  Also, not much of the county is dead set against Republicans.  Only Lower Bucks (and only certain parts) provide Democrats with big margins.  First-tier suburbs here are more amenable than in other counties.  Middle Bucks requires a swing of a few percentage points and Upper Bucks, even in a miserable 2008, voted Republican, though the margins need to be improved.

Chester County: Population (2000): 433,501, Bush 1988 Percentage: 67.0%, McCain 2008 Percentage: 45.0%

Chester County is the most exurban part of the metro area.  There are a few mid-sized towns such as West Chester, Coatesville, Downingtown, and Phoenixville.  But most of the county is composed of residential suburbs.  This is among the fastest growing areas in Pennsylvania and is the richest county in the state.

It was once one of the most Republican counties in the state.  It gave Nixon 64, 57, and 68 percent of the vote in 1960, 1968, and 1972 respectively; 61 and 70 percent to Reagan; and 67 percent to the elder Bush.  Those large margins are gone, though it was the only one of these counties to vote for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.  2008 was a historic reversal, as McCain ran 7 points behind Bush's 2004 performance, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to lose in Chester County since 1964.

In the case of Chester County, it appears there are more genuine temporary Republican defections than in other parts of the metro area, where more permanent ideological changes have occured.  If any part of suburban Philadelphia was affected by the housing market crash, it was a fast growing county like Chester.  Corbett was able to win the county by a near reverse of the presidential margin.  McCain won only 25 of the 73 municipalities in the county.  However, in another 24 municipalities McCain earned between 45 to 49.3 percent of the vote.  Surely all of these municipalities were Republican in the past, and should not be too difficult to have them return to the fold.

McCain only won western townships in school districts like Octorara and Twin Valley.  These are still mostly rural areas which are closer to Lancaster than Philadelphia.  The most populated suburban areas were won by Obama.  The Chester County component of the Main Line (Tredyffrin Twp., Easttown Twp., Willistown Twp., and Malvern) was won by Obama, though by slight margins.  Obama ran up strong margins in the towns and was able to win over most of the important townships outside of West Chester, Downingtown, and Phoenixville.

The poor showing of John McCain and the national Republican Party in the Philadelphia suburbs is the top reason why Pennsylvania has increasingly become a Democratic state.  In the next part however, we can see there is a different story to tell in the Pittsburgh area.

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In recent weeks, much has been made of the increasing perception that Barack Obama is an egomaniac.  From a spat of columns to the wonderful The One ad released by the McCain campaign, the right is getting out the message that Obama is incredibly full of himself.

By now, any good conservative is extensively familiar with the litany of delirious quotes either said by Obama about himself or that his supporters have spread.  The most famous example of his megalomania was his now famous quote, "We are the ones we have been waiting for".  This was a bit shocking for a guy who was previously viewed as at least more humble than Hillary Clinton.  But after Obama's sojourn to Germany last week, it is clear that the above quote was no fluke.  Between having all three network news anchors breathlessly cover his every step and the throngs of Germans on hand to listen to his profound platitudes, it is clear that at some point in the campaign Obama began believing his own hype.

A recent article in the Boston Globe picked up on the emerging Republican theme of Obama's arrogance.  Mentioned in the article is a poll conducted by CNN / Opinion Research Corp. that asked questions based on this particular trend.  When asked if either candidate is arrogant, 37 percent of respondents believed that Obama was arrogant while 34 percent believed that McCain was arrogant.  Another question asked if either candidate was "acting as if he had already won the election".  This one elicited a more lopsided response, as 44 percent said so of Obama compared to just 19 percent for McCain.  What I take from this is that most people think all politicians are arrogant (I agree full heartedly) and that they don't see either candidate as of yet as being more so than usual.  But I do think that a lot of people have thought to themselves "Wow, Obama is already acting like he's the President".  The goal for the right is to lead these voters from that thought to the belief that Obama has a raging ego.

On a positive note, the RNC has picked up on this trend.  They recently launched a mini-website entitled "Barack Obama Audacity Watch".  Since the site is new, it is a bit primitive, containing a bare bones design layout and minimal video (though it is priceless watching Jon Stewart exhorting his liberal audience to laugh at Obama).  But I am sure that with time it will become more substantive.  And no matter its design, it is an excellent repository of examples where Obama's head swelled too much.

The McCain campaign, the RNC, and the conservative movement need to keep this narrative going.  I am convinced that the reason that John Kerry is not the president right now is due to his statement at a town hall meeting in Wheeling, West Virginia where he delivered the immortal line “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”  This quote, soon to be repeated in an effective Republican ad, established Kerry as a flip flopper.  Once this label began to be kicked around, a lot of undecided voters looked at Kerry and said "You know what, he does act like that commercial a lot".  Many voters felt like they couldn't trust him and he lost the election by a small margin.  What I believe is that this year's version of flip flopper can be arrogance.

Of course, there will be the predictable liberal detractors who will declare this criticism "out of bounds".  And since Obama is the first black candidate with a serious shot at the White House, any denunciation of Republican campaign tactics will inevitably contain a racial aspect.  Take for instance the ridiculous column written by John Ridley in the Huffington Post (link provided if you can bear it).  To him, the use of the word "arrogance" can only mean a evil, old white guy trying to keep down anyone who is not an old white guy.  To be sure, in the past upwardly mobile minorities were indeed called arrogant by old white guys.  But that is not the point.  Ridley totally misfires in his belief that non old white guys are immune from arrogance.  The truth is that arrogance is part of the human condition, which cuts across all ages, races, genders, and backgrounds.  My advice to the left is to keep going with this line of criticism.  Nothing will alienate moderate white voters quicker than repeatedly being called racist for any criticism of Obama.

Finally, I can think of two good outlines for an ad McCain can use to spread this message.  The first would be based off the classic fable "The Tortoise and the Hare".  It would be a retelling of this fable, only with Obama recast as the Hare and McCain filling in for the Tortoise.  McCain being the tortoise might reinforce his age and lack of excitement, but casting Obama as the Hare would strike a chord with many.  My other idea would be an ad based around football.  It would feature a runner who is breaking away from the line and is about to score a touchdown.  It would be interspersed with examples of Obama acting like he already won the election.  Then it would show the ball carrier stopping at the 10 yard line and spiking the ball.  The ball carrier would then break into a celebration dance while a defender recovers the fumble and takes it the other way.  I would definitely try to air this during ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts, as it would resonate with the intended audience rather well.