Took my family to the NC State Fair today, now in it's fourth day. I was dismayed to see that McCain/Palin stickers (and other assorted Republican swag) outnumbered Obama/Biden/Democratic gear by a factor of about 10 to 1.
Now, I realize full well that the State Fair has the effect of...well, for lack of a more cordial term, bringing some folks "down outta the hills" so the general crowd might be somewhat more conservative than I'm used to seeing in the Triangle. But those folks that will go back up to the hills still get the same vote that we city-folk get.
And it wasn't just a stereotypical set of rednecks sporting McCain stickers. It was every age range from kids to ancients, and looked to cover low- and middle-class income segments. Couldn't tell regarding rich folks, because people rarely wear Armani suits to a place where you eat deep fried pecan pie on a stick and then go strap yourself into a giant centrifuge. Now, the McCain crowd was universally white, as I would expect. But I didn't see a corresponding show for Obama from minority fairgoers. In fact, most of the few people I did see wearing Obama stickers were white as well.
Personally, I think it was a ground game gaffe. The NC Repubs (not sure if they were in conjunction with the McCain campaign or not) had their stall in the middle of one of the exhibit buildings, and were tossing out stickers and shirts like it was Mardi Gras. The NC Dems had their booth in the back corner of the same building, and I had to hunt to find it. And when I found it, it seemed like the staffers were befuddled by the simple act of handing out stickers. And from what I could tell, it was just the NC Dems, not the Obama campaign itself. If the NC Obama organization ditched the state fair, that's a huge blunder. You get hundreds of thousands of people from all over the state through the gates in two critical weeks before the election. And if I was someone who had not paid attention to any polls or political news, I would have thought McCain was going to win North Carolina by a landslide, just based on the visual impression in the crowd.
The one bright spot was that the Dole campaign had their own booth, and it looked like people weren't taking Dole stickers if their lives depended on it.