Two recent posts on 538 (the “McCain just says no to Indiana” one and the “Organizing Update” one) address the fact that Obama is putting significant resources (in the form of paid staff and field offices) in several “Red states” and that for now at least McCain is not responding to those efforts.
Can McCain really depend on winning those states if he allows Obama to compete there unanswered? Is McCain’s best strategy really to depend on winning those states merely by coasting on his fairly slight lead there while Obama builds up his organization and to instead focus his resources on MI, OH, and FL? (Except looking farther down on the 538 page you see in the July 30th post that McCain isn’t yet spending in FL and instead is concentrating his dollars in PA … PA?!? So long as Obama answers, McCain has no chance of winning PA.)
Do you believe that they are so red that McCain does not need to answer there? Is winning MI and OH so important that he needs to risk those other states in order to maximally focus his resources on those bigger swings? Does his team believe that it is entirely a feint designed to force him to expend resource defending what is already his?
(Does anyone else here play Go? It reminds me of making a move attacking an opponents strength, knowing that my opponent has an adequate response and that all I really expect to get out of it is some gain by forcing that response - “kikashi” - only to be shocked when my opponent totally ignores my attack, falsely thinking his stones do not even require any defensive response at all - has two eyes already - and now I actually have a real chance of killing the group.)
Remember, it’s not just presidential elections this year. What Obama’s doing is shredding the very base and structure of the Republican Party in those states, and building structure for the future. State reps, governors, reps, senators… Heck, even county and town votes can be affected this way.
Yes, McCain should ignore most of Obama’s feints at winning “red” states. MOST of those states are not going to Obama under any circumstances.
There are a handful of Southern states (Virginia, most notably) where demographics have been changing, where Democrats have been winning statewide elections regularly for some time, and where Obama stands a very good chance of winning. McCain HAS to battle him tooth and nail in those states. But Texas, to use one example, isn’t going anywhere. If McCain devotes time and money to holding on to Texas (a state he can’t and won’t lose), he’s a fool. And if Obama spends more than a token amount of time and money trying to win Texas, he’s a bigger fool.
The thing is, they aren’t playing with equal warchests. Obama has more money than McCain and McCain doesn’t have the ability to fight back equally in every state. The money Obama’s sending on red states is extra money. He doesn’t have to scrimp on the battleground states to do it. I do think the Obama camp might be hoping to make McCain squander resources in red states, but eeven if he doesn’t, Obama isn’t really losing anything by trying to contend in those states, and some of them aren’t as red as they used to be. The Obama campaign was very good about figuring out how to win states by focusing on specific counties during the Primaries, and they my have some hope of being able to steal a red state or two by focusing resources on turning out favorable counties.
Absitively, posolutely. No question about it, sure as yer born, he should most assuredly ignore any such efforts. Oh, yes. That’s for sure and for certain.
Now, Universe, I know I haven’t been a very good pantheist…
With limited resources, I don’t see how he can do anything but depend on solidly red states. To put it a different way, if he needs to expend significant resources in red states, just to win those, what chance does he have with the swing and blue states?
If the goal is to “keep it close” then spending big in red states makes sense, lock in a respectable number of electoral votes there, but that’s all he’ll get. If the goal is to win, he’s got to count on them, and focus on the states he can’t count on right now.
So far as I know, if Obama carries the rest of the Kerry states and the others that he’s doing very well in and McCain gets all the rest of the Bush states, there isn’t any electoral math that lets McCain win without getting Michigan.
Plus, I think the McCain campaign recognizes this election will be a referendum on Obama. Hence, the negative ads regarding his suitability for the job. McCain knows that people in red states will mostly be voting for or “against” Obama, and that there are diminishing returns on the money he spends to convince people to vote for him.
Well, just to take one example, Indiana has been pretty solidly Republican for a while now. However, it includes suburbs of Chicago – Obama’s base – and energising the vote there while gaining some support in the rest of the state might be enough to swing Indiana Obama’s way. So McCain can’t afford to totally neglect it.
Diogenes is right, though. Your cite shows Obama in the lead. There’s a lot of time between now and November, practically an eon of political time, and McCain may yet win. But your cite doesn’t provide evidence that this is likely. The average of recent polls show Obama with a 2.5 lead.
Right. The goal is not to put Texas in Obama’s column; that’s never going to happen. The goal is motivating turnout so some of the closer local races get tipped. I think this is what Obama really means when he says he’s running a national campaign.
With barely 3 months left to campaign, McCain is hiring new strategists and trying everything they can but more people are tending still towards Obama. I don’t see this changing much in McCain’s favor. Obama’s field offices in red states are growing and his offices that are already in place are bustling [at least in CT and RI]. If Obama get’s even a fraction of Clinton’s supporters [which he undoubtedly will] this is not going to be a pretty year for the republicans.
As the election draws near and both campaigns engage in their respective strategies, Obama’s lead in the polls appears to be slipping. Some major polls find them in a dead heat.
No doubt a good many of the more vehement amongst us would prefer that this not be so, and accordingly will pretend that it isn’t so. Which is fine - I find this kind of thing more amusing than upsetting.
IIRC Bush trailed Kerry for some time, then, as the campaign continued, he pulled ahead, and went on to win. Now McCain, after trailing for some time, is no worse than even in some polls. Hardly a guarantee that McCain will win, but the only thing guaranteed is that, if he does win, there will be four years of screaming about election fraud on the SDMB.
