Democrat Barack Obama lost the county but ran strong in the Republican suburbs here.

This we know.

And this we've come to expect.

He beat Republican John McCain in 31 districts just outside the city - from Hamilton Park and School Lane Hills to Grandview Heights.

But when you consider Obama's win in Pennsylvania on Tuesday you should look beyond those moderate, middle-class, mostly college-educated voters - and out into rural parts of this county.

To Blue Ball.

To White Horse.

To Schoeneck.

Because many voters in those areas, the socially conservative values voters who turned out in droves for President Bush in 2004, didn't show up at the polls.

In Bush's strongest district here in 2004, Earl Township's Martindale, the incumbent president took 89 percent of the 408 votes. This year, McCain won with only 76.2 percent of the 366 votes cast.

That's a nearly 13 percentage point drop, or 84 fewer votes for the GOP's presidential candidate this year in that district alone.

In McCain's strongest district here, Leacock Township, the U.S. Senator from Arizona won 81.3 percent of the 1,090 votes cast. Four years ago, Bush won that district with 86.8 percent of the 1,345 votes cast.

Again, smaller turnout.

Smaller Republican margin.

Across Bush's 10 strongest districts here - all rural - McCain walked away with a margin that was a couple thousand votes short of what the incumbent president won four years ago, a review of election data shows.

National exit polls reflect a similar trend. Rural voters favored Bush by 19 percentage points in 2004 but went to McCain by only 8 this year.

You combine that with the Obama campaign's impressive ground game, his huge wins in Lancaster City and the inroads he made in the suburbs and you get the smallest margin here for a GOP presidential candidate in 44 years.

So what happened?

"My gut sense," said former county Commissioner Terry Kauffman, "was there was not the kind of enthusiasm for McCain within the Republican Party."

Kauffman, a Republican, said he heard from elections officials in rural parts of the county who witnessed light turnout after dinnertime, when voters in the suburbs were still waiting in line.

Activity at Providence Township's East and West districts in the southern part of the county, for example, dropped off substantially after 5:30 p.m.

"To me, that's a sign that there wasn't the enthusiasm," he said. "Or perhaps there wasn't the drive by the party to make those extra calls to get those people out. My general sense throughout the county is that the GOP was absolutely whipped at the ground game."

In the end, McCain fell far short of Bush's margins in New Providence in 2004.

Whether it was dissatisfaction with Bush's presidency or a general unease with McCain and running mate Sarah Palin, the rural vote didn't turn out for the GOP ticket like it did for Bush.

Douglas Eaby, who heads the Solanco Democrats and was at the polls in Colerain Township near Quarryville, said another factor is the changing demographics in some rural areas of Lancaster County.

"We get a lot of people moving west from the Philadelphia area and Delaware County," he said. "We have one new development of any size, and a lot of those people are Democrats or RINOs, Republicans in name only. They register Republican but vote the way they want.

"Say, 10 years ago this district would have been 700 for Bush and 200 for the Democrat. Now it's 600 for McCain and 300 for Obama," Eaby said. "I believe we're making inroads."

* * *

I completely missed this and wanted to make note of it here: Ken Duberstein, a 1965 Franklin & Marshall College grad who served as President Ronald Reagan's chief of staff in 1988 and 1989, came out in support of Obama last week. That's noteworthy because he's a pretty high-profile Republican.

Duberstein told MSNBC that McCain didn't properly vet his running mate.

"I think it has very much undermined the whole question of John McCain's judgment," he said. "What most Americans I think realize is that you don't offer a job, let alone the vice presidency, to a person after one job interview. Even at McDonald's you're interviewed three times before you're given a job."

That Ken.

He sure has a way with words.

* * *

Here's a bit of trivia for you: Even considering the huge number of new Democrats here, Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett scored the most lopsided victory in Lancaster County of any statewide candidate in history.

He beat Democrat John Morganelli here by 82,064 votes.

Corbett's plurality bested that of former Republican Attorney General Mike Fisher's record 2000 win here. Fisher won by by 81,281 votes.

Now you know.

* * *

No matter what you think about pre-election polls, this much should be said:

They were accurate.

Which is remarkable given all the variables, the unknowns, pollsters had to contend with this year - the huge number of new voters, the possibility that race would play a factor, the growing number of households that use only cell phones.

The final F&M Poll, which came out last week, showed Obama winning in Pennsylvania by 12 points among all registered voters and 13 points among likely voters. With more than 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama won by about 11 points.

Two weeks ago, F&M's national poll had Obama winning by 5 points among likely voters, and an average of all national polls had the margin at 7.6 percentage points.

Obama, as it turns out, won the popular vote by about 7 percentage points.

G. Terry Madonna, the director of F&M's poll, says that, sure, pollsters everywhere breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday morning. But he added that too much attention is paid to the horse race and not enough to the underlying data.

"For us, when we're doing these polls, I'm as much concerned about having context and getting an understanding of why they're voting the way they are," he said. "The horse race is something we all get focused on, but I think we spend much too much time analyzing the horse race."

He said pollsters are continually trying to improve their methods.

"For polling folks all over the country this was a year of hold your breath and see if the adaptations we had made in the methods we used would work," Madonna said. "I do think there was a collective sigh of relief when it was all over."

n Staff writer Tom Murse can be reached at tmurse@LNPnews.com or 481-6021. Politically Speaking appears Fridays.