Chamblee54

I had assumed for a while that JSM was assured of Georgia’s electoral votes. A few days ago, I wrote in this space that Georgia was so red that it glows. But looking at these stats from CL, I begin to wonder:

Amount Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign has raised in Georgia: $1,305,275
Amount Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has raised in Georgia: $2,458,219
Number of votes Obama received in 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary: 704,247
Number of votes McCain received in 2008 Georgia Republican Presidential Primary: 304,751
Number of votes Sen. John Kerry received in 2004 Georgia Democratic Presidential Primary: 293,265
This years primary was after a year of campaigning, and had much more interest than the 2004 primary. This accounts for some of the increase in voters, but there is also the BHO charisma. The dude is a rock star. He has people fired up in a way that JSM can only dream about.
The first two lines are what tell the story. BHO has raised $2.4 million smackers, and it is not the fourth of july. The man is going to be able to put up a challenge in Georgia. And even if he does not win Georgia, the Repubs cannot take us for granted this year. The GOP will have to make an effort in Georgia. This will take resources away from the Repub effort in traditional battle states like Ohio.
Black voters are a big part of the electorate in Georgia. This block should go overwhelmingly to BHO, and turn out in large numbers. Lets open the calculator and see what we see. Lets assume that a million votes are cast in Georgia. If 30% are black, and they all go for BHO ( remember, this is not reality, just pre summer speculation), then that leaves 70% of the population. BHO would only need 200K votes, or 28%, of the non black community.
I am not a political consultant, I just play one on my blog.


Meanwhile, JSM is starting to get scrutiny again. Operation Chaos is over, and the choice is clearly between BHO and JSM. HDRC is going to have time to bake cookies and wonder where her husband is. HDRC knows about phones ringing at three in the morning.
JSM appeared on the Today show this morning. I was beginning to take another look at him, given the issues with BHO. He said we need to be concerned about greenhouse gases, which causes apoplexy in Red America. There was talk about Nuclear Power, which is expensive and requires intense Government Regulation. There was talk about high gas prices, but no one connects the dots to the weak dollar and deficit spending in Babylon. Oh, and the surge is working. Happy talk in the press is part of the surge strategy.
JSM has a more likable personality that BHO. JSM appeared on the Glenn Beck show a few weeks ago, and the first thing he did was call Beck a jerk. I don’t see BHO reading that from his script. Maybe if I just got over this concern about the issues I could find one that I liked.