There were many Philly precincts, in white, blue-collar neighborhoods, like south Philly and Northeast Philly, Fishtown and Kensington, where Hillary creamed Obama in the primaries. Those are places, the NY Times reports, where Obama is at risk.
John Kerry won Philly by 412,000 votes-- 80% of the vote. But he won the state by just 144,000.
McCain has been spending enormous amounts of time in and around Philly, and he's sent Sarah Palin to the more "Alabama" part of Pennsylvania.
The hope is they'll pull the Hillary voters in precincts Hillary took eight or ten to one, the NY Times says:
As the Republicans try to map out ways in which Mr. McCain could pull off an upset, they see fertile ground in some enclaves in Philadelphia that are mostly white. They said that these areas would not yield a big trove of votes but that trimming Mr. Obama’s lead here might make a difference.
“I’m spending a lot of time in Philadelphia,” said Robert Gleason, the chairman of the state Republican Party.
“We’re working the Northeast,” he said, referring to a largely white part of the city. “We’ve got values voters up there, Catholics. My people up there say they can carry four to six wards this year, and four years ago, they carried none.”
NE Philly rowhouses
The "trimming" idea could also work with the Philly area's Jewish population. Jews usually vote about 80% Democratic, but with attacks on Obama's Israel cred and the Reverend Wright "attack," if they can trim away ten percent of the Jewish support, pick up another 10 or 15% from whites who supported Hillary who are uncomfortable, or outright racist-- and you better believe there are plenty of racists in Philly-- then McCain just might pull it off.
Fortunately for Obama, Democratic registrations have soared statewide. Hopefully, for the senator from Illinois, enough of those registrations will include, not just people who registered to vote for Hillary in the primary but also people who will stay Democratic on November fourth.
