To win Pa., it must appeal to moderates.

By Michael Smerconish - Inquirer
Inquirer Currents Columnist

If retail politicking alone determined the election outcome in Pennsylvania, McCain-Palin would have won in a landslide. Speaking on MSNBC election night, Gov. Rendell joked that the GOP ticket had spent so much time in the state that he was thinking of assessing them with a state income tax.

All told, John McCain spent 30 days in our state. Sarah Palin campaigned here 14 times after joining the ticket. And while Democrat Barack Obama spurned public financing and spent more than twice as much as McCain on ads nationwide - about $292 million vs. $131 million - in Pennsylvania the disparity wasn't as wide. According to CNN's Election Tracker and news reports, the McCain campaign spent about $21 million on ads in Pennsylvania between June and Oct. 29, while Obama spent about $25 million during the same period. Both totals were more than what the candidates spent in any other state.

But McCain's commitment of resources could do no better than a 12-point deficit statewide. Obama bested him in Delaware and Montgomery Counties by 20 points; in Bucks, the margin was 8 points. Even Chester County, the only suburban county carried by President Bush four years ago, was not immune. Obama won by 9 points. It seems as if all those personal and television appearances were somewhere between meaningless and counterproductive.

What mattered was not how often we saw and heard McCain, but what he was saying. His campaign was devoid of a message to the suburban voters here and nationwide who once were the backbone of the Republican Party.

Of course, McCain was plagued by his association with Bush and an economy in a tailspin. But neither of those factors alone can explain the margins in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Instead, the campaign repeated the mistake of Bush's efforts in 2000 and 2004 by playing to the party's base to the exclusion of more independent-thinking suburbanites. There is a reason the Democratic registration edge in Pennsylvania has increased from 485,540 in 2000 to 1.2 million now. The GOP has lost touch with its constituency, and the McCain campaign did nothing to regain that connection.

We were offered Sarah Palin as a vice president, Joe the Plumber as an economic adviser, and socialism as a bogeyman instead of a discussion about stem cell research, preservation of open space, or the need to end the war in Iraq regardless of whether the surge was successful. Palin may have star power in Lancaster County, but as Montco Democratic chairman Marcel Groen told the New York Times immediately after her selection, in his county, she was a "bomb."

There was no pitch made to moderates. Instead, there were direct and indirect efforts by the McCain campaign to whip up the base. The only difference between this cycle and those overseen by Karl Rove was the issues used to incite passion among conservatives.

Last election, it was opposition to same-sex marriage. This time, there was the subtle and not-so-subtle insinuation that something about Barack Obama was to be feared. Consider the Lehigh County GOP chairman who shared a stage with McCain and referenced Obama's middle name, Hussein. Or the daily e-mail blasts from the RNC with a subject of "voter fraud alert," consisting of endless embellishment of the routine incidents of voting mishap. On Election Day, some guy who had no business showing up with a billy club at 12th Street and Fairmount Avenue was spun nationwide into an effort by Black Panthers to suppress white voting - overlooking that he was at a polling place in the Richard Allen Homes, where only 84 of the 1,535 registered voters are Republicans.

The McCain campaign was directly involved in some of this activity. Why did a radio spot about health care that was played in heavy rotation the days before the election begin with a menacing voice asking: "Who is Barack Obama?" Presumably, to fuel Internet fodder about the background of a man who was able to endure media scrutiny for 21 straight months.

Viewed against the backdrop they fostered, it is no wonder why McCain and Palin each telephoned with concern the woman who emerged in Western Pennsylvania with an incredible tale of how an Obama supporter had carved a "B" on her face. In a climate of voter fraud in support of socialism that must have sounded quite reasonable, it was overlooked that the letter was in reverse and had been made by the woman herself, looking in a mirror.

The GOP will continue to lose Pennsylvania, and hence the nation, until it comes to grips with the fact that it is ideologically out of touch with concerns of residents here and in similar communities across the country. The campaign needed a platform that spoke to the constituency that votes for Sen. Arlen Specter and Rendell regardless of their party affiliation.

Barack Obama beat John McCain in the Philadelphia suburbs, which really means, he defeated him at the center.

Michael Smerconish's column appears Thursdays in the Daily News and Sundays in Currents. He can be heard from 5 to 9 a.m. weekdays on "The Big Talker," WPHT-AM (1210). Contact him via http://www.mastalk.com.