Sen. Clinton to scour state for Dem ticket, Rendell says

[Bravo Zulu]

Sen. Clinton to scour state for Dem ticket, Rendell says
Thursday, September 11, 2008
By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gov. Ed Rendell says Pennsylvanians can expect to see plenty of his former favored presidential candidate, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as Democrats seek to blunt any post-Palin Republican momentum in the battle for the state's electoral votes.

Mr. Rendell made that projection as he joined Pennsylvania's Sen. Bob Casey and Craig Schirmer, state director for the Democratic presidential campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, in a phone briefing yesterday, during which they reported still more Democratic registration gains and predicted that there would be yet more before the Oct. 3 deadline.
Mr. Rendell said he had talked to Mrs. Clinton about campaigning in the state. "She's not going to take Gov. Palin on in a personal sense," he said, speaking of the GOP vice-presidential pick, "but she's going to take the issues on. I think we're going to see a lot of Senator Clinton in Pennsylvania."

An Obama campaign spokesman said they would welcome Mrs. Clinton in the state, but were not ready to announce specific plans. Since her Denver speech supporting her former rival's candidacy, Mrs. Clinton has spent just one day, in Florida, stumping for Mr. Obama. She is scheduled to campaign for him this weekend in northeast Ohio.
As Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, was campaigning in the state for the second consecutive day yesterday, the Pennsylvania governor didn't hesitate to take on his Alaskan counterpart, Mr. McCain's running mate.
Citing a Washington Post report which disclosed that Ms. Palin had routinely taken state per-diem reimbursements for nights she spent at her home in Wasilla, Mr. Rendell said: "If I tried to take a per diem when I slept at home in East Falls , the ... media would have me impeached. I'd be gone."

In response to the Post story, the McCain campaign has asserted that her expense payments were legal and fully disclosed.
Ms. Palin and Mr. McCain appeared together Tuesday in Lancaster before she returned to Alaska yesterday, and Mr. McCain went on to a solo appearance in Philadelphia. He was to be in Somerset County today for a memorial service for victims of Flight 93, one of the three jets seized by terrorist hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Blair Latoff reacted to the Rendell comments in a statement, arguing, "From a campaign that pledged to be about a new kind of politics, Barack Obama's campaign sure looks a lot like the slash-and-burn partisanship of politics past."

Earlier in the briefing yesterday, Mr. Schirmer reported that the Obama campaign had continued to make gains in the voter-registration drive that had already significantly boosted Democratic registrations before the state's April primary.
Before the primary, in which Mrs. Clinton bested Mr. Obama by 9 points, the state saw Democratic registrations climb by roughly 300,000. Mr. Schirmer yesterday said his campaign had added another 100,000 Democrats to the rolls since then, in a state that Democrats won by fewer than 150,000 votes in 2004. With those gains, he said, Democratic registrations now outnumber Republicans' by 1,118,297.
"I'm looking forward to a tremendous ground game," Mr. Rendell said. "We may have the best ground game in the modern history of politics."


http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08255/911258-470.stm

[EmilyAnne]

1. Wonderful!! I'm not surprised, either. She'll be very good in PA.

[Bravo Zulu]

2. Pennsylvania is a blue state!