Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Kirby Center Only 1/3 Full For McCain Visit

I'm sure if Obama was there it would ahve been a mob scene. McCain just does not have the charisma of Obama and he is like a one issue candidate. I will be surprised if one third of the country votes for him come election day. Just my opinion. Dont shoot the messenger. I'm no the only one who feels this way.

I copied both on that one. The first link made it sound as if your area was well in favour of McCain. But, they sure played down the attendance by not drawing comparisions to it! I think a successful candidate would fill at least a former movie theatre. I didn't hear anything brilliant or even educated or smart in his remarks. I wonder why the news article got written up with such a positive slant?

I'm surprised there weren't more people there. It sounds as though people have their minds made up, and don't really want to hear what he has to say. I hope people pay attention to any debates they may have.

Well it's definitely a small city. The US census lists the population as 41,630 (2003 estimate). The city of Tampa where I live is 317,647 by comparison. 80% of the population is over 18 which means you have about 32,800 people that are old enough to vote. With an average voter turnout of 64% that leaves 19,680 voters to consider. Since this is a weekday many people were working and unable to attend such events. Obviously I can't provide any official statistic on how many people in your city work during the week. I'd say 600 is a pretty fair turnout with those factors taken into consideration. It's not a great turnout, that's for sure. I wouldn't expect him to have great turnouts at a heavily democratic city. I think it's good that he's not limiting himself to Republican strongholds like Texas and Alaska. We all know the tough questions come from the opposition, not from your own party. It sure would be nice though if Obama had the guts to do what McCain is doing. I'm not saying that just because I don't like him. I'm saying it because people deserve the chance to speak to their candidates.

I would think that he would have a better turnout even in a heavily populated Democratic county. The Democrats could have maybe challenged him. But then again who wants to sit and listen to his BS. Horrible turnout but maybe it's a sign of things to come.

Well I would love to hear what he has to say about fixing the NCLBA. I use to work in education as some may know and I also have children all 12 and under. I think that this bill was the worst step in the nation's history. Do you know that my 10 year old child that has ADHD and also autism has to take the state standarized test??? Now, the first time he took the test he had an IQ of 72 which is very low he didn't even know how to read, but through lots of hard work over the past 2 years he is now at an IQ of about 100 which is within the average range with "normal" children. He is on the high functioning end of autism. Now, some of you may not know that children are taught only to this stupid test. All the things we learned in school is out the window. No more extra stuff. I have been told that I don't like the NCLBA because a Republican came up with the bill/act that is further from the truth, I just don't like it because it is unfair to the children and also to the school district. Gas tax holiday, I could go for that but I kinda like the wheels on my car. I would hate to see the roads any worse then they currently are. Unless there is a plan to come up with a new way to pay for roads, I think I will continue to bite the bullet and pay the tax. What the government should be doing is trying to figure out how to stop the oil companies from making billions every year in profits. As for his turn out, hmmm that doesn't sound like very many people but how big is the county? If the area only has a population of 1,000 people then he had a good turn out, if the population is 50,000+ then he had a bad turn out. Thanks for the rant, had a rough day, now I feel better LOL

It is hard to get a town full of Democrats to turn up for a Republican candidate and I fear for the country if Obama who is more pro abortion than the Clintons and will appoint pro abortion judges to the senate, gets elected. Having charm and charisma is very dangerous. I remember our Trudeau had it and Hitler also had charm, and the German people fell for it because he told them what they wanted to hear and I also noticed that when McCain talked about getting rid of high gas prices by releasing more land for oil production, Obama took a turn around and said he would do that. I hope that the States does not go through what we are going through now. We now have a conservative government, but after so many years of liberals, it might be too late to make things right. I hope that in the future, there will not be posts here and letters saying, I wish we knew then what we knew now.

I think it very wise for McCain to visit heavily democratic areas and try to sway the undecided voters, as well as any voters that may be somewhat dissatisfied with the present democratic candidate. Obama is spending plenty of time visiting areas that have traditionally voted heavily republican. Both candidates are looking for voters in unlikely places. I think it is good campaigning.