Washington, DC, USA. To everything there is a season, and for a couple of million well-seasoned Pennsylvania voters, it can not come soon enough. After six weeks of candidates, commercials, and controversies, they are finally going to get to vote. But precisely where are Pennsylvania voters as they prepare to vote on Tuesday, April 22nd (2008)? In the glare of more national attention than any primary in the state’s history, what are state voters thinking? What are they likely to do?

 

A series of late season polls, including the Franklin & Marshall College Poll, provide some illuminating insights into the electorate’s collective mind. Taken together they render a fascinating portrait of Pennsylvania and its Democratic electorate on the eve of a historic state election: the why, what, how, and where of the 2008 presidential race, Pennsylvania style.

What are the issues driving the race?

 

Towering personalities have dominated this contest, but to an extraordinary extent, this race also reflects voters’ deep concern about the issues as well. Concerns about the economy continue to resonate as the issue Democrats most often cite as important in their vote choice this year (43%), followed by the Iraq War (23%), and healthcare (13%). However, on these key issues voters view the candidates differently. Clinton is

perceived as more credible on healthcare, while Obama is better known for his views

on the war.

 

Source: Franklin & Marshall College Poll, throughout.

 

Who’s winning the horse race?

 

Hillary Clinton is narrowly leading Barack Obama, but her one time large lead is shrinking. Out of likely Democratic voters, 46 percent now say they plan to vote for Clinton, while 40 percent say they will vote for Obama. But in March, Clinton led Obama by 16 points, so she has lost more than half her former lead. The question now is whether Clinton has stopped the hemorrhaging of her support with her impressive debate performance in Philadelphia last week — aided perhaps by lingering concerns about Obama’s controversial statements regarding small town Pennsylvanians.

 

Where is support coming from?

 

Clinton continues to lead among her core constituencies. Critical for her have been women, older voters, Catholics, union households, voters with high school educations, and voters with incomes less than $35,000. But Obama leads among younger voters, non-whites, voters with incomes over $75,000, and liberals. The crucial male vote is evenly split between them. Neither candidate has altered the other’s core support; however, Obama has been able to chip away at Clinton’s once massive lead in most major demographics.

 

What’s driving Obama’s gains in the state?

 

Obama’s surge has been bolstered considerably by his television advertising and his aggressive campaigning in the state during the past three weeks. Democrats (by a two to one margin) tell Franklin & Marshall pollsters that Obama’s commercials are more effective than Clinton’s. Certainly his ad buys are breaking state spending records for a primary, and they are working. Almost all Democrats (94%) have seen a television ad for the Obama campaign. Part of Obama’s gains can be attributed to his specificity about the issues, including how to help people with job training and education. Democrats who have watched his ads believe they know a lot about his ideas.

 

Will undecided voters be important?

 

They might be. One in seven (14%) likely votes are still undecided going into the final weekend. Moreover the number of undecided is larger for some key voter groups. For example, 17% of male voters are still undecided, 22% of union households are undecided, and a whopping 27% of self-identified conservatives are undecided. If the undecided were to break decisively for either candidate, a close race could be broken wide open.

 

How important will turnout be to the results?

 

The race could be determined by turnout. Voter support differs so much by gender, age, and especially region of the state that variable turnout rates across the state could determine who wins or loses. If women, older voters, or western Pennsylvanians turnout at high rates, that augurs well for Clinton since these demographic groups support her strongly. Conversely high turnout rates from younger voters (ages 18-34) or voters from southeastern Pennsylvania (Philadelphia and its suburbs) will enhance Obama’s support. Particularly important will be any variation in regional turnout since both Clinton and Obama’s strengths are strongly skewed on a regional basis. In particular there is a stark divide between the eastern and western parts of Pennsylvania.

 

Will new voters be significant in the outcome?

 

They might be, and if so it could be decisive. There has been a significant increase in the number of new Democrats registered to vote in Pennsylvania. All together there are roughly 300,000 newly registered Democrats in the state, a mixture of first-time voters and those switching parties. Franklin & Marshall polling shows nearly two in three (62%) new voters plan to vote for Obama. New voters tend to turnout at a high rate, clearly auspicious for Obama who gets most of them. The caveat is that many of the new voters are also younger voters who historically turnout at very low rates.

 

How will geography play into this race?

 

Pennsylvania is geographically vast with regional differences in its politics that are playing out strongly in this race. In this race regional differences are unusually sharp. Clinton leads in much of western Pennsylvania by margins as high as two to one, while Obama leads in Philadelphia and the Southeast by wide margins. Overall the western part of the state favors Clinton, and the eastern part of the state, especially Philadelphia,

favors Obama. The regional battleground is the Philadelphia suburbs. If Obama is to

win, it will happen in the Philadelphia suburbs.

 

Who is going to win?

 

This final unknown awaits the voters. The conventional expectation is that Clinton wins, albeit narrowly. The subtext to a narrow win for her is that her campaign likely collapses post Pennsylvania — bereft of hope, money, and rationale for going on. But there are many who paint a different ending. A few believe Obama’s surge will power him to an actual win. Others believe Clinton might still win big — extending the Democratic nomination fight well into the summer.

 

Franklin & Marshall College Poll: Summary of Findings. Center for Opinion Research; Floyd Institute for Public Policy; Franklin & Marshall College. April 8-13, 2008.

 

 

 

 

Daventry, Northamptonshire, UK. In 1986 we lived near the Thames valley town of Maidenhead in Berkshire, on a flight path from Heathrow Airport. Peace, the need for a bigger music studio and more office space indicated a move so each weekend we drove on a radial path from London looking at places and property.

 

By the new year nothing had appeared and we were about to give up when the details of an early 17th century farm house and barn with outbuildings in the midlands appeared. It looked perfect. Only my mother, who had reduced snobbery to a science said with some disapproval, “The Midlands, that’s the Black Country!” [N1] We still went to look.

 

In the farmhouse kitchen was a basket with kittens, outside were horses and Labrador dogs. In ten minutes, I was already having the barn restored for music with the organ across the end and a room on the first floor that could be fitted out as an office. By late 1987 it had all happened.

Washington, DC, USA. On April 4, 2008, the Wall Street Journal ran an article, “States Move Fast on Mortgage Aid,” which summarized recent actions taken by Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Ohio to help homeowners avoid mortgage foreclosures. Similar articles over the last several months have highlighted state leadership throughout the country in a variety of areas, including health-care reform, energy conservation and climate change.

 

But while states have provided innovative leadership over the last several years in many domestic policy areas, their ability to enact new programs and policies is being curtailed as state revenues decline and many states confront budget gaps. And recent legislation put forth by Congress will only compound the problem.

 

Alarming trends

 

This cumulative impact of the stall in economic growth on states is most notable in health care, as states struggle to implement the coverage expansions enacted in good economic times and see ambitious plans derailed. California, whose budget shortfall likely played a major role in the failure of the governor and the state Legislature to

reach agreement on universal health care, is a prime example.

 

The economic cycle is an unfortunate fact of life, and states, as always, will adjust to this ebb and flow of revenues. Far scarier than the economic downturn for states is the growing trend on the part of Congress to restrict state revenue and spending prerogatives and to replace them with congressional priorities. Two provisions in bills now making their way through Congress are important examples.

 

Higher Education Maintenance of Effort (MOE). The higher education bill currently pending in conference committee contains a provision that penalizes states any time they reduce higher education spending below the average of the last five years. This provision represents a major new mandate on 11 percent of state spending, which, on top of the Medicaid mandate that already represents 23 percent of state budgets, means that the federal government will dictate how states spend more than one-third of their revenues.

 

This provision is harmful in that it reduces state spending flexibility. But even worse, it also will have the unintended consequence of lowering state higher education expenditures in the long run because governors, knowing they will be held to this higher spending mandate during the next economic downturn, will be unwilling to make major higher education spending increases in good economic times. What’s more, this provision ensures that, regardless of its fiscal condition, a state must continue to fund higher education even if it has to cut Medicaid for women and children, welfare or elementary and secondary education. States, who best understand the unique needs of their residents and have the nimbleness to act quickly to meet those needs, should be the ones to establish spending priorities, particularly during an economic decline — not the federal government.

 

Property Tax Deduction Limitation. The housing bill just passed by the Senate contains a provision that provides a new property tax deduction for individuals and joint filers who do not itemize their tax deductions. It is, however, only available to a resident of a state or locality that does not raise its tax rate between April 2, 2008, and January 1, 2009. This provision does not take into account that some localities may need to raise rates just to maintain police departments, fire services, schools and other public services. Again, local government leaders should be accountable to their citizens for these choices, not the federal government.

 

Intergovernmental impact

 

In both of these examples, Congress is attempting to remedy a problem. In the case of the higher education MOE, Congress recently has increased federal Pell Grants to make college more affordable and, thus, does not want states to counteract the benefit of this increase by reducing higher education expenditures. Similarly in the case of mortgage deductions to help homeowners, Congress does not want state and local governments to offset this benefit with higher property taxes. In both cases, Congress is taking a very parochial view, with little appreciation for the breadth of issues being faced by state and local governments.

 

The strength of our intergovernmental system is that state and local governments are smaller, more flexible and adaptable, and thus, as the Wall Street Journal indicated, “more fast.” Rather than appreciating that strength, the federal government is taking a very short-run, issue-specific approach that limits the flexibility of the entire intergovernmental system.

 

Unfortunately, with the current economic downturn, the federal deficit will increase dramatically over the next year, fueling an increasing willingness by Congress and the Administration to dictate federal priorities for state and local revenues. Because the increasing deficit will mean fewer funds for new federal discretionary programs, Congress is likely to consider more mandates that will continue to reduce state and local flexibility. Congress needs to step back from its short-run approach and understand that it is limiting those governments that are more capable of solving problems quickly.

 

 

Washington, DC, USA. To adopt a technical term widely used in Pennsylvania politics, Democrat Barack Obama "stepped in it" last week during a talk in San Francisco.

 

He did so when he described working class Pennsylvanians as a "bitter" lot who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who are not like them." The longer passage from his remarks gives the full flavor of them.

 

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And … each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

 

There is no doubt about what he said. The question now is will it matter: first to his tight race with Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, and secondly to the ultimate outcome of the Democratic nomination contest.

 

The Pennsylvania part of the question is easier to answer.

Obama's loose lips late in the campaign are not without precedent in Keystone state politics. "Pennsylvania actually has a rich tradition of politicians and their handlers putting their foot in their mouths during a crucial moment of a political campaign." (Time, 2006)

 

The list of those who have is surprising long and includes former U.S. Attorney General and former Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh, former gubernatorial candidate Barbara Hafer, former celebrity US Senate candidate Lynn Yeakel, and former gubernatorial candidate Bill Scranton. You will note here the frequent use of the adjective "former."

 

What these candidates or their handlers did — and what now places them in historical parallel to Obama — was to say things in public that revealed in them political flaws that ultimately undermined their candidacies.

 

Each did this in his or her own way. For Thornburgh it was his campaign manager who in the heat of the campaign — overcome apparently by a rush of candor — referred to Thornburgh as "the salvation of this sorry-ass state" thereby assuring that the seemingly hopeless underdog Harris Wofford would defeat Thornburgh and retain his Senate seat. Barbara Hafer's version was to dismiss her opponent, then Governor Robert P Casey, as a "red necked Irishman," thus hastening him onto one of the most lopsided landslide victories in state history.

 

U.S. Senate candidate Lynn Yeakel's sin is illustrative of the genre — for it was not so much what she said as what it said about her. Running in the so called "year of the women," against Arlen Specter and in the aftermath of the Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill controversy, she was thought by many to be the one to retire Specter. But her candidacy collapsed after she made herself seem like an out of touch elitist by mispronouncing the name of a Pennsylvania county when visiting there.

 

Finally the latest example of state politicians' succumbing to an advanced stage of lapsus linguae came during the 2006 gubernatorial contest. Locked in a tense GOP nomination fight with Lynn Swann, the African-American all-pro former Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver, the campaign manager for former Lt. Governor Bill Scranton described Swann as "the rich white guy in this race." Scranton fired his manager and soon withdrew from the race.

 

All of these foot-in-the-mouth moments ended badly for the offending candidate — causing or contributing to their defeat. Pennsylvania journalist Al Neri has neatly summed up the lesson to be learned here: " … as Pennsylvania history shows, when you did have to admit an error, apologize and ask for forgiveness, it always meant one thing: you were going to lose."

 

And lose they did, every one of them. But why they lost is important to understand. It was not just that they were poor candidates with bad ideas. Nor was it even bad timing or simply bad luck that took them down. Fateful for these campaigns was that the unguarded comments suggest problematic personal traits or attitudes that the voters somehow earlier had suspected, but had not seen. They all had fatal flaws.

 

And for Obama what possible flaws do his remarks reveal?

For Obama the consequences seem both short and long term. In the short run, Obama's words are likely to do serious damage to his campaign in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania working class voters constitute about 40 percent of the Democratic vote. Obama's claim to understand and to identify with them has been dealt a serious blow after a largely successful two week surge in the state. The Clinton campaign is already capitalizing on the controversy. It may be enough to propel her to that big victory that seemed so unlikely only a few days ago.

 

Longer term his comments deriding the religious and cultural values of working class Americans will cause some to dismiss his claim to be a national unifier. Indeed, his remarks make his unity theme sound like little more than a campaign con. He has probably assured that the nomination race will now go on well past Pennsylvania — to an ultimate fate that few if any can predict.

Cupertino, CA, USA. I’ve been wanting to publish this post for almost 2 years now but haven’t mainly because I hadn’t figured out how to communicate my story without sounding like a victim, a bitter shrew, or a resentful killjoy, all of which at various points since I left that career to be frankly honest, had been true. 

 

 

 

I kept struggling with sharing my story not because I’m afraid that future employers would Google me and then not hire me. No, I’m more afraid of letting go of the ledge and trusting that I will land safely in the life work that I am really supposed to do. If I hang onto the pain of the past, I can use it as an excuse for not moving forward. (Can you hear Dr. Phil already?) The pain of the past is comforting not because I like it but because I know it. Who knows what’s out there in the future? It’s more comforting to be with the devil you know than the one you don’t, right?

 

But no more excuses. No more writing drafts and no more waiting for the right time to tell the story perfectly. I still don’t know how to write this with my normal panache but whatever. It has to be told because I’m tired of keeping it in, and it is like a ball and chain. I know too that besides helping myself heal it will help other people cope or deal with their own similar career struggles.

 

Before I do go further, I want to pre-empt and emphasize that this story is my perspective of Silicon Valley based on my past, and I do make some generalizations. Not everyone is an asshole or sex crazed maniac. I've met some very nice people as well. Today, I'm really just doing inner de-cluttering of piles of rubbish that is taking up space leaving me no room for new happy stuff. So here it goes …

 

The real reason I left my marketing career in tech is because I got fed up with feeling like a sexual target every time I went to work, and especially at tradeshows and conferences where you add to the picture booze, partying, and “what happens on the road stays on the road” mentality. Since geeks like PowerPoint slides, here is a slide I did that illustrates just one example of how many times an attractive young woman working during one day or week at a technology tradeshow can get hit on, sexualized, and gawked at.

 

 

 

 

 

Try having to deal with this at various degrees for 10 years. You can quickly start to see how gaining those pounds of protection become an effective tool in warding off sexual advances and attention because guys are not as interested in the fat girl as they are the hottie skinny girl. That extra fat makes you almost invisible and the guys leave you alone.

 

After being raped by the co-worker boyfriend, I quickly gained 30 pounds because I didn’t want anyone to hit on me nor did I want to deal with anything sexual. Going to a new company only resulted in a nervous breakdown, or break through as I call it now. The worst part of that whole experience was not the assault itself but the fact that the company stood more by the guy’s side than mine because he was their multi-million dollar golden sales boy who everyone thought was Midas because he was so good at closing deals. I was more expendable than he was, and I was too afraid to fight for myself. 

 

I hated myself for not standing up for me, but I equally hated the company for choosing what was right for their greed versus what was the right thing to do. This was the culture of this particular company, and not all companies in tech would tolerate behavior like this. My example is an extreme case but unfortunately I’m not alone. It is by all means not common, but it is also not unheard of.

 

One of my theories as to why women stay away from the tech industry is that they don’t want to put themselves in situations that make them feel like sexual targets on a constant basis. If you want a glimpse as to the kind of hostility geek guys can have towards women, visit the comments section on any popular story on Digg like this one about a video where a guy punches some girl in the face after she rejects him for a

date. The incident with Kathy Sierra was not an anomaly as women are often targets

of antagonistic attacks online.

 

And here's an example of what some guy wrote about the search engine Spock after their poor taste Victoria's Secret vs. Sports Illustrated swimsuit models search demo at a Web 2.0 conference:

Sound revolting to you on the outside of tech, but this kind of tone and speak happens all the time online in tech sites, blogs, and forums. The maliciousness and ill will on the women's sites/blogs/forums pales in comparison. So, how would you feel having to deal with this kind of offense in your job on a constant basis?

 

On the office front, it’s no fun being the only female working with a group of guys as if you were the first one allowed into the locker room or frat house. I had enough of egomaniacs who expected me to kiss up to their insecure male ego because they couldn’t stand a woman being smart, creative, and not afraid to tell them the truth versus what their pride wanted to hear. … I got tired of busting my ass and giving up my life to make other people richer …

 

… I got tired of busting my ass and giving up my life to make other people richer …

I got tired of being treated like a bitch because I produced more results than my jealous male co-workers. I got fed up with people attacking my virtue by spreading rumors about me sleeping around when I spent most nights in my room crying myself to sleep. I didn’t want to hear one more, “It’s not personal, it’s business” when the management was going back on its word.

 

I also saw the writing on the wall. The opportunities for women over 40 years old in Silicon Valley dwindle dramatically. You have a better chance of getting into a pair of size 2 skinny jeans than you do of becoming a VP or C-level officer or getting your own startup dream funded.

 

Tech companies and VCs want people who are young because they are cheap,  they will give up their life for the job because they do not have the responsibility of kids & family, and they don’t have as many life conditions as older people do like limits on travel, flexible work hours, or wanting more to time to work at home. And nothing will stop your promotion track faster than letting it be known that you want to be a mom.

 

Lastly, I got tired of busting my ass and giving up my life to make other people richer while I got a paycheck and a “Good Job” paper certificate at the end of the year. I came up with ideas and produced results that helped some of the companies I worked for make millions of dollars, and while of course I got more responsibility to keep on doing what I was doing, I got peanuts financially compared to what others got.

 

I’m not saying I’m not grateful for the prosperity I did have, but it was nowhere close to being fair for the results I produced. And this is where the difference between those who want jobs and those who want to be entrepreneurs come in. People who want jobs want security. Entrepreneurs want wealth, not just in money but in doing work that has deep meaning and purpose for them, and that is what I want.

 

Exactly how I get there, I have to figure out, but I know a big step is continuing the process of letting go of the pain of the past, and letting go of the ledge trusting that everything will turn out just fine. Yeah, I have been through a lot of horrendous crap, but it's made me wiser, not perfect, just more reflective. I've already spent a good number of years working on my issues so I feel like I am coming to the final chapters. I do believe that anyone can have their happy ending if they can just find a way to trust the process. It has to be, don’t you think?

 

This article is adapted from The real reason I left my career in tech by Stephanie Quilao, reprinted by permission from the author. The text has been slightly edited and reformatted. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5  License.