Santorum Hurting Swann

Tribune-Review drags this silly number out.

Swann and Santorum are trailing badly in their respective races against Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell and state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr. Pardon us -- and, yes, we know the long-shot nature of our speculation -- but given Swann garnered 22,000 more votes statewide than Santorum in the May primary, perhaps the concern should be that Santorum will hurt Swann.

After this "fun fact" was revealed in May, I did the following calculation...

Ed Rendell was alone on the ballot and got 646,397.

Casey: 621,233; Sandals: 47,982; Pennacchio: 65,828; for a total of 735,043 Democrat voters.

With no other selection than Rapid Ed Rendell, that means that 88,646 didn't pull the lever, push the button, or touch the screen for him.

Does that mean that Governor Rendell is in four times the trouble that Santorum is in? Of course not.

Me? I'm waiting to see all of the county by county results.
That's where the interesting numbers lay.

For example, my county. Montgomery.

Lynn Swann got 25,454 votes versus Santorum's 25,829. The Senator beat the Steeler by 375! ... and this is in somewhat moderate Montco, with Lynn Swann's running mate Jim Matthews being the commissioner! To be fair, Jim Matthews got 26,789.

Let's go to the left.

Governor Rendell got 24,981 votes, compared with Casey's 20,155. The total Dem Senate vote was 25,573. 592 did not vote for Rendell.

While fun to calculate, and repeat ad-nauseum, it doesn't mean anything.

SwannBlog writes...

But the reasons from Senator Santorum’s primary woes were twofold. First, the unpopularity of President Bush. If the polls are to be believed, a goodly sized chunk of the Pennsylvania GOP considers the President to be pond scum. By association, Rick Santorum is contaminated.

Secondly, there are the backwards voters who stubbornly decided that since Rick supported Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey in the ‘04 Senate race, they’re not going to vote for him. It is a petty grudge forcing an electoral decision where one would wish, in a democracy, that one would use a rational basis for determining for whom to vote. It is the same dynamic as that shown by the Trib when they go off on one of their rants of opposition to anything remotely related to “payjack Bob.” The same sort of thing drives the anti-Bushies, but it may date back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment or Al Gore and his hanging chads.