Matt's Excellent Keystone Adventure

Eleven Points!

Obama wins Pennsylvania 55-44. The margin was over 600,000 votes. Let's think about the conventional wisdom of Pennsylvania politics for a moment. Pretend that instead of winning Philly by 450,000 votes, Obama had split the vote with McCain. Obama would still have won Pennsylvania yesterday. An African-American in Pennsylvania can win state-wide if Philadelphia were out of the equation entirely. Are we going to think about race and Pennsylvania politics a bit differently in the future?

On the other hand: YO PHILLY WAY TO GO! I saw most of the heavy-lifting of the campaign around Philadelphia and the suburbs.

Oh, and Obama took Delco 60-39%; that's a 60,000-vote margin. Bwahahahhahahahaha.

Delaware County Republicans: Still Jerks

Delco Republicans setting up fake check-in tables and intimidating voters. Nothing has changed apparently.

Diary of a Phone Banker

I really enjoy canvassing in person. I loved doing the work I was doing for SEIU in Pennsylvania. But I HATE phone banking. I feel like I'm intruding, it's not the same kind of personal connection, and I never am quite sure if I'm doing more good than harm. It's all I did in 2004, and my unhappiness with that kind of connection is one reason I set out on my Keystone Adventure this year.

So...this was the only thing I could do, in fits and starts, because of my obligations as a caregiver since I had to leave PA mid-month. The one thing about phonebanking in this day and age is you can do it from home, one call at a time, from your cell phone, during idle moments. I gritted my teeth, signed up for the My Barack Obama list, and I did get in quite a number of calls to Pennsyvlania (not quite sure of the final number, but around 200). It wasn't much. I hope it did some good.

One day left: I don't need to remind readers to vote -- but if you have a chance to take tomorrow off, please do so, and go down to local Obama HQ and see what you can do to help GOTV. Even if it's taking water and food to the workers in the field, driving one person on an errand, or just standing in line to give somebody else a place in line who needs to get to work, your willingness to work election day can make a difference.

I started out on the Adventure because I didn't want to have to tell my kids years hence I sat by and did nothing while the Republicans wrecked this country, while we had a person of tremendous ability and vision in Barack Obama at hand to do the job. It's not too late to help change history.