No one can question the historic margin of the win recorded by President-elect Barack Obama. The U.S. Senator from Illinois won the state by 604,000 votes or 10.3 percentage points – a landslide.

He won by almost the double the combined margin that 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry and 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore recorded.

He got a margin that was almost 50 percent bigger than any recorded by Bill Clinton, who topped out in the low 400,000s in his two elections in this state.

Among Democratic presidential candidates, measuring by percentage or raw vote margin, Obama’s win was topped only by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, among Democrats in the 20th or 21st centuries.

According to the state elections bureau, with 99.8 percent of the results in, Obama got 54.6 percent of the vote, 3,196,277 votes, to 44.3 percent of the vote, 2.592,462 for the Republican, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

And the most impressive part of it? That the horde of new voters didn’t show up. 5.7 million Pennsylvanians voted for president in 2004, 5.8 million voted this year, so Obama persuaded mainly those who have voted in the past.

He made sure his supporters cast ballots, more than he brought vast new numbers to polling places at least here.

And that was despite an epic battle for the state by the GOP. After two cycles when President George W. Bush was accused of making Pennsylvania his second home because of his frequent travels here, McCain came more often, sent his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin here as often as Vice President Dick Cheney used to come here, spent more here than Bush did, and lost much bigger.

In fact, on Election night, as the networks one by one called Pennsylvania for Obama, a cheer went up form the massive crowd gathered at Grant Park in Chicago for Obama’s victory speech.

Although Obama had not yet reached the critical mass of 270 electoral votes needed to become president, the partisan crowd was well aware that the loss of Pennsylvania by the Republicans made it highly unlikely McCain could win.

Joe Scarborough, the former Republican congressman and conservative commentator and talk show host on MSNBC, said Thursday that future Republican nominees who seek Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes are “chasing fool’s gold.”

He aid he regarded Pennsylvania as deeply blue for presidential elections and that the only caveat is if there is a popular Pennsylvania Republican (i.e. former Gov. Tom Ridge in this election) on the ticket.

“I say go there, take in a Phillies game, but then go to a real swing state,” said Scarborough, expressing the GOP frustration of expending time and resources here for five straight presidential elections and yet losing.

Bush lost Pennsylvania by 184,000 or so votes to Gore in 2000 and by 144,000 votes to Kerry in 2004. Obama won the state by 604,000 votes, following the Clinton/Kerry/Gore pattern of tying in Western Pennsylvania, cutting the margin in the center and rocking the vote in eastern Pennsylvania.

Obama won the 5-county Philadelphia region by 658,000 votes, where Kerry won them by 500,000 votes in 2004.

But Obama’s reach went well past there. Kerry won Erie County by 10,000, Obama by 25,000. Kerry lost Lancaster County, the state’s biggest-majority margin GOP county in recent elections, by 71,000 votes. Obama cut that margin to 27,000 votes Tuesday. Just for perspective, that is a 20-percentage point gain over Kerry’s result, where Obama managed to improve on his Philadelphia result by only 10 percent.

Barack Obama

And Obama clearly spent time in Pennsylvania, and developed new favorites here, which was another big story in this race: Gov. Ed Rendell being replaced by U.S. Sen. Bob Casey as the Democratic presidential nominee’s favorite Democrat in Pennsylvania.

It was Casey who endorsed Obama in the primary, and stayed loyal despite a 10-percentage-point defeat in April. It was Casey who traveled with Obama the most in the state.

(Editor’s note: It was unlikely Casey would have endorsed primary rival, Hillary Clinton, given the shabby treatment her husband, then-nominee Bill Clinton, gave Casey’s father when the then-governor of Pennsylvania was refused a turn to speak at the 1992 party convention.)

So come Victory Party time it was Casey who was invited to play hoops with Obama on Election Day in Chicago and be backstage in Grant Park before Obama’s Election Night victory speech, with the Obama and Biden families and other pals.

And now it will be Casey through whom Rendell will have to go to get things out of the White House. That should not be a problem substantively, because at the end of the day, Rendell and Obama are fairly similar on policies and Casey agrees with both on most issues regarding spending, programs and taxation.

But it will be galling to the Big Dog of state Democratic politics, that he is now, to the White House, the number two Democrat in Pennsylvania.

And that Obama is now a bigger political star in Rendellphia, the 10 or so southeastern counties that propelled both of them to victory, than Rendell is.

All will not be lost for Rendell, though. One of the other big beneficiaries of the new Obama administration is likely to be Deputy Speaker Josh Shapiro of Montgomery County.

When Obama rode a whistle stop tour through Pennsylvania the Saturday before Primary Day, Casey and his family were in the train car right next to Obama’s. Who else was there, looking very comfortable hanging with the Caseys? Shapiro, who has continued to be a major surrogate and advisor to the Obama campaign, and a close ally for Rendell.

With Shapiro likely to be offered and some say, to accept a major position as a deputy secretary in a key department, or perhaps White House deputy chief of staff or some such post, Rendell will likely have one close ally and confidant in the 30-something Shapiro, and others who will emerge later.

Shapiro is also the rare Pennsylvanian to enjoy a good relationship with Rahm Emannuel, the new White House chief of staff, whom Rendell dislikes and considers too combative and needlessly confrontational.

Other winners and losers will emerge, but Obama’s win and his demonstrable coat-tails, helping Congressional Democratic candidate Kathy Dahlkemper knock out incumbent Republican Phil English in Erie, and helping the state House remain Democratic by his mega-performance in Chester, Montgomery and Bucks, unseat the Clintons as the Number One powerhouse performer.

Obama is now the most popular president in Pennsylvania, determined by sheer votes and percentages, since Richard Nixon in 1972 and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

And a final note: despite reporting done by Capitolwire.com and the Philadelphia Inquirer and many other newspapers, it does not look as if Obama’s African-American race cost him many, if any votes.

He did lose one ward to McCain in South Philadelphia, the 26th, an old white and historically anti-black ward, but only by 500 votes.

But the state Republicans targeted 15 wards in the city, including many in the mostly white and conservative Northeast section of the city. The GOP believed it could outright win at least a dozen wards and cut 50,000 votes from the 400,000-plus Kerry’s margin of 2004 from Obama’s city totals in 2008.

It didn’t happen. Not at all. Obama won 14 of those 15 wards by a total margin of 50,000 votes, behind Kerry’s total, but not by much, running about 10,000 votes behind Kerry in those wards, but running far ahead of Kerry’s totals in black and liberal wards in the city.

And out west, Obama ran a little behind Kerry, but it is hard to attribute that to race, when he ran ahead of Kerry in Erie, Lebanon, Lancaster and Dauphin counties, among many others and matched him in Greene.

The counties where McCain held or exceeded Bush’s 2004 margins are simply places which have become Santorum-Republican enclaves, Republican, not racist.

But the bottom line is that despite winning 49 of the state’s 67 counties, McCain still lost the popular vote and Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes by more than 600,000 votes. And there was no reason to send in lawyers to contest.

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The GOP surges
Despite what was happening with the presidential race, the state’s strongest and steadiest caucus was winning

In a sea of Republican disasters in the Keystone State on Election night, one rock-solid GOP operation continued to keep and even improve its general election track record.

The state Senate Republican caucus picked up a seat with the deft and surgical campaigning for which it is know. The caucus artfully used a basketful of tactics to win its targeted races.

In Dauphin County, for instance, where Obama won by 12,000 votes, a 22,000 vote turnaround from President Bush’s 10,000-vote margin in 2004, Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin, faced a tough challenger, Judy Hirsh, a small well-financed businesswoman.

In similar Obama-surge counties, state House Republicans lost six seats they held last time. But with the Senate Republican Campaign Committee pouring $400,000 into Piccola’s campaign, he managed to win both in Dauphin and in York counties, and hold onto his seat.

But that only happened after – and perhaps because - Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, who beat Piccola by one vote for that top Senate leadership spot, took over that campaign, entrusting it to his top aide and chief of staff on leave to run the campaign committee, Todd Nyquist.

Because without that level of control, Scarnati was not about to turn on the tap of campaign funding, and Piccola had to agree in order to get the campaign cash.

So Scarnati’s money nuked Hirsh in ads that were even harsher than Hirsh’s, and both campaign’s ads were deservedly rated low on accuracy.

After trailing Hirsh for most of the evening, Piccola ultimately won Dauphin County, 51 percent to 49 percent, and his small piece of York County, 62 percent to 38 percent. Piccola won 63,829 to 59,014, with victory margins of about 2,000 votes in each of York and Dauphin.

Because Piccola famously stalked out of the caucus elections two years ago after he lost to Scarnati, Scarnati’s rescue of him impressed caucus members, who saw Scarnati put their majority ahead of any past disputes.

Now Piccola, who refused as he sought re-election to commit to serving out his four-year term, may run for Dauphin County judge next year. When local Harrisburg TV broadcaster Dennis Owens asked him about that rumor in the final weeks of the election, Piccola refused to quash it or rule it out.

Then Scarnati and Nyquist faced a totally different challenge on Oct. 18, when state Sen. Jim Rhoades, R-Schuylkill, died from injuries suffered in a car accident two weeks before he stood for re-election.

The GOP had to make sure Rhoades, even after his death, won re-election so that they could find a new Republican candidate for a special election in late 2008 or early 2009 to replace Rhoades. The Rhoades family eagerly asked voters in TV and radio ads and mailers to cast “one more vote for dad” and it worked. Rhoades got 63 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Democrat P.J. Symons. Now, Rep. David Argall, R-Schuylkill, and Ali Rhoades Hobbs, the daughter of Rhoades and daughter-in-law of Rhoades’ GOP predecessor, former Sen. Fred Hobbs, are leading the field of GOP special election candidates.

Jim Rhoades

Rhoades Hobbs was the leading family campaigner during the 10-day campaign to re-elect her dead father, with Scarnati and Nyquist spending more than $200,000 of caucus political money on that race.

For the special election, the multi-county district party committees will select their nominees, with Schuylkill County making up almost two-thirds of the district. Reps. Neal Goodman, D-Schuylkill and Tim Seip, D-Schuylkill, are most often mentioned as the Democratic candidate. Goodman is considered the more likely nominee.

Then came a pair of districts which are almost mirror images of each other: In Westmoreland County, Sen. Bob Regola, R-Westmoreland, left the ballot in August because even after he was acquitted of perjury charges, polling showed he could not win.

Republicans replaced him with Westmoreland County Commissioner Kim Ward, and launched a million-dollar campaign to tar the image of the man they called a “serial tax-hiker,” Democrat Tony Bompiani, a former school board member. Bompiani, who led Regola 50-32 when Regola agreed to leave the race, lost to Ward, 46 percent to 54 percent. That was favorable ground for Republicans, because Westmoreland, in voter performance, gets a little better for the GOP in each election.

But in this election, Scarnati, who stood by Regola against calls for his resignation or non-candidacy for more than year, had to ask him not to run again and tell him the polling was accurate and immovable. That was another move where caucus members were watching closely, to see if Scarnati would coddle his friend or politely show him the door in order to keeping their big majority in that chamber.

And the outgoing and friendly Ward, who likes to sing and dance her way up driveways when campaigning, is expected to become a big western GOP conservative star in Harrisburg and Western Pennsylvania.

But Democrats could not return the favor by being as skillful in Beaver and Lawrence counties as Republicans were in Westmoreland.

First Nyquist and Scarnati were mocked in Republican Senate circles for investing an early $150,000 in long-shot races in Beaver and Montgomery counties. They felt, and turned out to be right, that the candidates there, farmer Elder Vogel in Beaver, and Lance Rogers in Montgomery, were unusually strong candidates.

Rogers, as the insiders predicted, ran a great campaign for naught, since his Democratic opponent, Rep. Daylin Leach, D-Montgomery, was too popular and well-funded. Leach won 62 percent of the vote, beating Rogers by 28,000 votes.

But that race, back earlier in the year, looked just as promising as Vogel v. Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver, up in Beaver and Lawrence counties. Ramaley was popular, well-funded and he was running in a district with 62 percent Democratic registration and nearly 60-percent Democratic average performance.

But Ramaley got indicted in Bonusgate for allegedly running for office in 2004 during the hours he was supposed to be doing constituent service work for state House Minority Whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver.

And then, just like Regola, polls showed Ramaley could not win. And just as in the Regola situation, the county Democratic parties involved forced Ramaley to relinquish his nomination and then met to pick a candidate.

Beaver County, the dominant majority in the district, picked Beaver County Commissioner Joe Spanik. Lawrence picked the man who nearly upset Ramaley in the primary election, Jason Petrella. Democratic State Committee did a poll and broke the tie in favor of Petrella, because their survey found Spanik was unelectable because of the Ramaley and Veon Bonusgate charges and other semi-related charges made by newspapers.

But unlike the Senate GOP in Westmoreland County, the Democrats in Beaver did not immediately put $250,000 into mailers and other pieces to devastate Vogel’s reputation, as the Republicans did to Bompiani in Westmoreland and to Petrella in Beaver.

“We got to define Petrella, because they gave us that opportunity to go first,” said one Senate GOP strategist. “That was crazy of them.”

By the time the Senate GOP was done, even though Petrella ran in the primary, and received major coverage in the Beaver County Times as a reformer challenging the Beaver County Democratic machine, voters there thought he was tied in with Veon and Ramaley.

Petrella thought this was ridiculous, and it was, since he had just finished running against Ramaley and the rest of the remnants of the Veon machine in the primary, and losing to them.

But then the Senate GOP found another nugget: that Petrella was related to Bonusgate figure and Monaca, Beaver County native Mike Manzo, and their fathers were first cousins and good friends. And the families lived down the street from each other in Monaca.

Petrella denied this connection as well, telling Capitolwire: “I don’t know Mike Manzo.” Then that news service reported that in contrast to that denial, Petrella actually attended Manzo’s wedding and while there complained to the groom about his entrée and table assignment.

Petrella’s father Donnie also met with Manzo in January of 2008, months after Manzo quit the House Democratic caucus as chief of staff, over Bonusgate issues and e-mails tying Manzo to approving taxpayer-paid bonuses for campaign work by staffers.

Ultimately, unlike the situation in Westmoreland, the party switching from a suddenly-unpopular candidate got no boost from its replacement.

Vogel won with 57 percent of the vote in a district where Republican presidential candidate John McCain got only 53 percent of the vote. In Westmoreland, Ward trailed McCain, getting 54 percent to McCain’s 58 percent.

Nyquist told Capitolwire it was more than a tactical victory: “We have been swimming upstream against a difficult national current. We had a message of low taxes and reform and that is why we will come back with 30 votes” in the Senate, counting the Rhoades victory.

“People felt comfortable that we made government more accountable and open and that we would safeguard their pocketbooks against a governor who took his higher-taxes message across the Commonwealth and Pennsylvanians responded to our message. And we will watch out for them in the next years.”