The race in Ohio

I got polled last Sunday (at 3pm) by Rasmussen.  I live in the Ohio's swing-district-of-all-swing districts, so it was thrilling to think that my opinion would actually be listed to.  A few interesting things about the poll.  It was a robo-poll which moved along at a fair clip.  There were a few demographic questions in the middle of the poll.  It gave the option to vote for Barr, Nader, and McKinney.  The most interesting question was, "If you had to make the toughest decision of your life, who would you ask, Barack Obama or John McCain?"  

In the local paper here, the fact that McCain was up in a poll (not the Rasumussen one) was front page news.  Of course, McCain was not really up in the poll--he had 48, Obama 42, but the margin of error was 3.3% so it's a statistical tie.  

Obama is having difficulty in Ohio.  It's the same old story--people feel uncomfortable with him waltzing in and taking over the country.  And why shouldn't they?  Obama's inexperienced.  He's not tried and true.  There are plenty of good reasons to be skeptical of Obama without being racist.  There was a forum last week in West Virginia blaming racists there for not supporting Obama.  I heard the same opinion from a WV native at APSA in Boston.  I said recently here that there was no way that Obama could win West Virginia; however, he's been creeping up on McCain in the polls, to the point where they're basically tied in the Mountain State.  

In Ohio, there was an Obama volunteer who had a hilarious venting in the letters to the editor section of my local Sunday paper.  It was well-reasoned, even eloquent, if it wasn't so sarcastic.  The lady was choking on her own disbelief that people would support McCain/Palin.  It was an interesting snippet of the race, because this lady obviously has knocked on a lot of doors, or made a lot of phone calls, or both, and has heard the same thing over and over--that people relate to McCain (and especially Palin) in a way they don't with Obama.  

That's why money is not so much a factor in this race.  Obama might raise more, and will continue to be able to raise more while McCain's finished (he's taken his $84 million of government money and can no longer accept private donations), but both have enough money to compete, and that's all that matters.  Obama poured money into Ohio and PA in the primaries, and he got creamed by Hillary.  Money is not the answer.  It pays for legions of enthusiastic volunteers to become disillusioned and crabbed like the lady who had to vent in public about how stupid the people are who she's trying to pursuade to vote for Obama.