Has anyone been talking about this? (with poll)

One of the most specious arguments we've heard some of the Democratic strategists make is that Obama is weaker in Ohio and Pennsylvania than Clinton is simply because Clinton defeated him there.

    To be sure, Clinton scored relatively convincing victories in both Ohio and Pennsylvania over Obama.  And she currently polls a bit better than Obama does in those states.  But does that mean that Obama can't win those states?

    One of the most conspicuous aspects of both Ohio and Pennsylvania is that they are probably the biggest old-school "machine" type states left in the country as far as the Democratic Party goes.  Because the party machinery in both states was behind Clinton, it meant she had an automatic advantage against Obama.  What everyone neglects to mention is, when Obama is the nominee, the same machine in each state will be working for him.

    In the year 2004, the deck was stacked against Kerry in Ohio as far as government machinery goes.  The Governor was Republican Bob Taft. And the man who was basically in charge of election machinery was the Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.  We now know that there were numerous "problems" on election day - not enough voting booths in Democratic precincts, problems with voting machines, ballots not being mailed to overseas voters in time, regular voters being stricken from the rolls, and so on.

Link:  http://www.rollingstone.com/...

    But this year, we have Democrats in charge in Ohio.  Jennifer Brunner is the Secretary of State and Ted Strickland is the Governor.  It seems logical to assume that Brunner will see that all precincts across Ohio have their fair share of voting booths and equipment.  Ted Strickland's GOTV machine will be in full swing for Obama in November.  One would hope that absentee ballots will be mailed out well in time to Ohio voters living both domestically and abroad.

    In Pennsylvania, Obama will have the powerful support of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.  Does anyone really think Obama will do any worse than Kerry did there in 2004? (Kerry won Pennsylvana by about three points - 51% to 48%).  

    As an interesting side note, Clinton's victory over Obama in Ohio was only 8.7 percentage points - 26,000 votes smaller than her victory appeared on election day, now that all the absentees and provisionals have been tallied.  And in Pennsylvania, where provisionals haven't even been counted yet - Clinton's margin of victory is just 9.2 points.

    So remember - the Democratic party machinery will be in full force in the ever-turning-blue states of Pennsylvania and Ohio.  And I believe they will catapault Obama to an electoral landslide.