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Sunday, March 28, 2004
Small Hints on the Election from Small Places
Posted by SeamusThose few of you who know me probably know that I live in a very rural community two hours northeast of Pittsburgh (my township has some 250+ registered voters). It is also a highly Republican area where Democratic candidates are few and far between. In fact, between 1996 (meaning after the 1996 election) and 2004 I cannot remember a single Democrat running for US House, PA Senate, or PA House. Which gets me to my reason for posting.
Many folks here and elsewhere have noted the outstanding turnout for many of the primary elections as a positive sign. And I think there are other signs that the left of center public is fired up and motivated for this 2004 election. I think it speaks to something because I haven't seen this kind of excitement for Democratic politics in a long time (indeed I've only seen it within third party work I do). And I think there small indications that this is spreading to even Republican areas in Pennsylvania. Democrats here are running candidates for both the PA Senate and House in 2004. Either 1) this is an indicator of growing election interest or 2) it will create greater interest in the election. I see this primarily as a good thing for Democrats winning Pennsylvania in 2004. To the extent that Republican votes in rural Pennsylvania can be countered even before the suburban and urban votes are tallied so much the better! This is something worth keeping an eye as the primaries approach.
Posted at 11:02 PM in Pennsylvania | Technorati