McCain; Keeping coal.
The short sighted ideas of Obama seem destined to cause massive disruptions to the power industry and the coal industry if he is elected. He is seriously talking of taking the option of coal generation (48% of US electricity) off the table without any plan other than to throw massive funding to unproven technologies which may, or then again may not fill the gap somewhere down the track.
Most of these technologies if they are ever viable will still require large baseload power stations to take up the slack when they are not getting sun, wind, or moonbeams whatever. He also wants to go extensively into bio-diesel which along with ethanol have caused massive increases in food prices as well as incredible environmental damage.
Mac wants to keep coal, drill for oil and gas, and keep industry going until alternative technologies are ready and economically able to take their place in the scheme of things. Here he is talking about it.
I worked the poll here in this district from 6-10 (voting began at 7, and polls close at 7). This is a fairly small, conservative voting district, with a GOP majority. It was amazing. At 6, there were people waiting outside the church. When we opened the doors at 7, the line went all the way around the church and down the street.
ReplyDeleteAt 10, I cast the 396th vote. That's a huge turnout for this district, a huge GOP turnout. There was no sign of any more "youth" voters than usual. There were some volunteers for candidates standing outside when I left, and both the two Dems and two Republicans agreed that from the reactions of the voters to them as they went to vote, most were voting GOP.
If there is a massive GOP turnout all over the state, McCain has a very good shot at carrying Pennsylvania. I'm seeing similar reports from Indiana, Virginia and Florida.
Also note: The polls assume a huge Democrat turnout and a depressed GOP turnout. That's not what's happening here. I suspected as much. That's how we won in 2004 -- huge turnout. I think we're going to see a huge GOP turnout in all the battleground states. We may also see a huge Dem turnout. That will make the race close; it won't seal it for Obama. Not, that is, unless the Dems get a bigger turnout.
Don't look for results from Pennsylvania until late. We're expecting many polls to still be voting at least until 11. "The polls close at 7" only means the doors close. Everybody inside still gets to vote. In this district, it will take about 90 minutes to get everybody inside through. In larger voting districts, it will take even longer. That's going to make "early reports" based on exit polls even more problematic than they were in 2004. Let's hope the media learned their lesson about that.
I'm going back to work from 4-6. Turnout did slack off from the first hour, but it's much heavier than any other election I've seen here, and people who have been working elections for years say it's bigger than even what they saw in 2004.
I am really hoping we can pull this one out of the fire, this is great to hear.
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