Matt's Excellent Keystone Adventure

Delaware County Republicans: Still Jerks

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

The "Can't Vote if You Were Foreclosed" Lie Hits Philly

I talked to a couple of canvassers today who had heard from multiple friends in Manayunk that "people" are going

door to door there saying if you vote and you're being foreclosed or you have been foreclosed, you are committing a crime. This is all third or fourth hand, but the story is indeed making the rounds of the African American community here...and people are pissed. I'll try to see what I can find in the way of more direct verification of this story, but it wouldn't be surprising to find that this tactic has made its way to Penn's Woods.

 

Help, I'm Having a Flashback, A Dirty, Dirty Flashback

Ah, Delaware County and its Republican Committee, Republican Council, Republican judges, and Republican rules. Now is maybe the time to briefly relate the tale of the 1984 election. That year of course Mondale was facing off against Reagan, and had his keister utterly kicked. He won only Minnesota and DC, and the many hundreds of hours I spent on the campaign that fall were utterly wasted as we fell a couple of percentage points short of carrying PA. We also had a hot local congressional race that year, incumbent Congressman-Methodist minister Bob Edgar (who ran and lost for the Senate in 1986) vs. Curt Weldon (odious 10-term Congressman finally put out to pasture by Joe Sestak in 2006.)

Edgar had been swept into office in the class of 1974, and was so utterly reasonable that he continued to get re-elected during the intervening years by the predominently Republican -- VERY Republican -- towns of Delaware County. This infuriated the local machine, which was known as being very powerful and quite corrupt on all levels. There were a variety of tactics employed to oust Edgar in '84 and put in Weldon, including (drum roll) voter disenfranchisement. The same tactics being used in Virginia and Montana this year, in fact: disqualifying student voters (on election day) on the grounds that they weren't registered at their "correct" address, if they had changed dorm rooms -- dorm rooms, not just dorms -- since they registered. This ended up disqualifying several hundred voters at Swarthmore College, and the only recourse was to request an emergency hearing at the county courthouse in Media. We had something on the order of 2 cars to take people there, at the same time we were supposed to be taking voters to the polls. I wasn't a part of any of the hearings but I heard horror stories second-hand about the judge obviously being in the tank. And of course once the polls closed, your chance at getting a hearing faded to nothing, since it was then a moot point. Of the several hundred disqualified voters, only 5 or 6 got to cast ballots.

Did it work? Nearly so. Edgar won, by only a few hundred votes, with I'm sure other dirty votes from other parts of the CD going to Weldon. The damage may have been done, though, as Weldon won office easily in '86 when Edgar ran for Senate. (I have hard memories about all this, but I will say one side effect of the '84 election was I met my wife, but that's a different story.)

In any event, I spotted this report by the Philadelphia Inquirer -- shot in front of the very courthouse where we had the emergency hearings, in Media, in 1984 -- and I shuddered with flashbacks. Note the interviews with voters...the more things change...

 

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I drove basically from river to river today across the northern part of Philly to get from where I'm staying to one of the offices where I'm working, and I did a sign count (I'll put up a gallery of pictures later on the Campaign Photo album), and also did another sign count in Tulpehocken-Germantown when I went out for a walk later. No shockers about who's going to win based on the signs: Obama outpolled the second-place finisher by about 40-1. However, the second place finisher was none other than Bob Barr. (I was particularly struck by the Barr household in a very, very large house that was stuck between a halfway house facility and an assisted care facility. The making of a libertarian).

A couple of odd things about Philly that have changed since I lived here. First, there's a lot more Latinos in town, particularly non-Puerto Ricans. I saw pick-up soccer games and signs for "Envios a Mexico" in the corner stores, just like Sunday back at home in California.

The neighborhoods definitely look better than they did in the 1980s, which is not to say the Philadelphia doesn't have its problems. The foreclosure crisis seems evident by the number of signs indicating (1) for sale, (2) mortgage refinancing seminars, (3) quick cash for homes. I wonder if the impending economic crisis, uncontrolled, might mean a return to worser days for working Philadelphia. I already knew how important this election is but it does add a sense of urgency about the final month. The stakes are pretty high here.

Another odd thing: it's October and it doesn't feel like fall. The weather's actually warmer than it was in California (admittedly I live in a colder part thereof). There is only the barest tinge of color in the trees. It was shirtsleeves and shorts weather today, downright hot at one point. Global warming? I remember reading someplace (Jared Diamond?) that environmental changes are often more noticed by those who have lived in a place and reutrn after a long absence, since they don't get that effect of not seeing very gradual change. (I'm sure I'm wishing a cold sleet storm on myself soon enough.)

It's the final full day of registration here, and there were some funny (encouraginly so) things: in a few spots, competing registrars from the Obama campaign and various grassroots organizations. The folks who have been doing the hard work of registration here are probably glad to be at the end of that part of the push (the registration deadline is tomorrow in PA) but have that aura of having done good work -- that good-end-of-the-day-tired.

There's a tiny bit of buzz that Republican officials are going to try to enforce an interpretation of the no-electioneering at polling place laws to prevent people from wearing t-shirts supporting particular candidates from entering polling places. Taking off a button is one thing, but taking off a t-shirt is a problem if you're not wearing anything else. I'm a little familiar with this from having been a polling place inspector, but we were always instructed by the county that t-shirts and buttons were totally OK. The law was intended to prevent active electioneering, buttonholing voters in line, that sort of thing. It's obviously a blatant attempt at voter suppression. A voter who has to literally go home and change his or her clothes -- who is proudly wearing her or his colors, as it were -- is one that has to make an extra effort to vote. And it's obvious (to me at least) that selective enforcement here can be targeted against particular (Obama) voters. The effort was reported a few weeks ago in the Philadelphia Inquirer, but we now here there are emails circulating around warning people not to wear their gear into the polling place. I'm not sure if this is well-intentioned to try to prevent people from being surprised on election day, or just more subtle voter suppression by worrying people about being hassled. In any event, all the more reason to maximize registration and turnout. Double digit leads in the polls might have a way of evaporating if voters are systematically turned away for whatever reason. God help us all if that happens...