Today we vote
Pennsylvania finally votes today on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and I expect my wife and I will walk the block to our polling place shortly after they open. Shipoke, our neighborhood, always has a healthy turn-out, so I don't anticipate greatly increased lines over what we normally have. The difference could be if people are so eager to vote that they all come before they go to work instead of waiting until they get home this afternoon.
Who will win? Probably Clinton. The polls consistently show her on top by 6 to 10 points. Turnout among the newly registered voters and those who switched from Republican to Democrat will be the key. Those are believed to be Obama voters by and large, or Republicans who wanted the opportunity to vote against their old nemesis, Mrs. Clinton.
This is a state that is comfortable with the old and the tired, suspicious of glittery new ideas no matter how attractive they might seem to others. We keep a state liquor store system here that is widely despised, and disallow the sale of six-packs of beer in supermarkets, drugstores, and convenience stores because of a general fear of change. Those who would change that system lose out to those who profit from the old ways and use fear of change to cripple attempts at reform. We can't directly order expensive wines from small California wineries--you must go through a cumbersome process controlled by the state Liquor Control Board--because fears were raised that teenagers would order $50 bottles of pinot noir by mail to evade the drinking age.
Yet it is also a state that produced a local boy federal judge, John Jones III, who listened to all the evidence and wrote a legal opinion banning so-called Intelligent Design--warmed over creationism--from the public schools. Jones was chairman of that same Liquor Control Board before he became a judge. Go figure.
I always tell people that Pennsylvania is "relentlessly moderate" in its politics, which is a function of its resistance to change. An Arlen Specter is right out of that tradition. A Rick Santorum is not, and he eventually was thrown out by voters tired of his rightwing extremism. It is a state tailor-made for Hillary Clinton. But it will probably shift its allegiances to Barack Obama in the general election, especially after voters really get to know John McCain and how much he is like-or worse than--George W. Bush, whom they twice rejected.
My prediction for today: Hillary by only five points, given the success of the Obama campaign in mobilizing new voters and getting them to the polls.