Soon after John McCain scored a series of surprising victories and sewed up the Republican nomination, I commented that I believe that John McCain’s ambition was to be the Republican nominee for president – not president, but the nominee of his party for president. I compared him to Bob Dole.
In 1996, Bob Dole ran a vigorous campaign for the Republican nomination and then curled up like a salted slug. His campaign for the general election, which followed an enormous sitzkreig (From the German, meaning phony war. Dole campaigned very little from March until the convention), was uninspired. In the end, Dole was reduced to campaigning in heavily Republican states just to ensure he wasn’t erased off the political landscape à la George McGovern or Walter Mondale. This meant that in the waning days of the campaign, Dole wasn’t fighting the good fight in battleground states, but shoring up strongholds like Arizona, Texas and Mississippi.
And for John McCain, 2008 is starting to look an awful lot like 1996. McCain campaign has suspended operations in the former battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin. They have also suspended operations in Maine. This week, McCain was forced to campaign in North Carolina, a state he was once so sure of he gone there in over six months. North Carolina is now shaded Carolina blue on many political maps.
The Commonwealth of Virginia, which hasn’t voted for a Democrat in a presidential campaign since LBJ, has now turned from red to blue. Assisted by a flawless campaign for Senate by former governor, Mark Warner, Barack Obama may do the unthinkable.
Let’s look at the poll numbers as they relate to the Electoral College. In order to win the presidency, a candidate must win 270 votes in the Electoral College. No one doubts that Obama will win all of those states carried by John Kerry in 2004. That means Obama has a base of 252 Electoral College votes.
In the past month, Barack Obama has opened a clear lead in Florida, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico and Virginia. He has smaller leads in Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri and Nevada. He is within striking distance in West Virginia, North Dakota and Montana as well as one district in Nebraska. (Nebraska and Maine apportion their Electoral College votes by Congressional district.) If Obama wins in all of these states, and he may, he will secure 389 Electoral College votes -- LBJ's magic number over Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
But the bad news isn’t over for John McCain. More recently, Obama has been gaining steadily on McCain in Republican strongholds like Georgia. In June, McCain had a 10-point margin over Obama. Early voting started on Monday in Georgia and the state is expected to shatter its previous turn-out record. What should excite the Obama campaign and worry the McCain camp is the high turn-out of Georgia’s African American community. As of Wednesday afternoon (October 15), 540,000 ballots had been cast in Georgia. The majority of ballots were cast in heavily Democratic metropolitan areas and black voters made up a disproportionately high number of voters – 37%. In addition to Georgia, Kentucky and Arkansas may also be “in play.”
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| Electoral College Math 101 |
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willy3411
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Oct 17 @ 4:52PM
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Dole was going against a very popular incumbent president. Dole also was too serious during his campaign. Dole also tried to talk about 40 different topics. When Clinton won the election vs Bush 1, he hammered away with "Its the economy stupid"
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eastham
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Oct 17 @ 6:25PM
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Willy,
As I mentioned in my email response to you, I was trying to focus this blog more on the mechanics and less on the message of the two campaigns. There are many similarities between how McCain and Dole have conducted their campaigns.
First, and I think this may be a weakness of the Republican primary structure, McCain locked up the nomination very early, as did Dole. With the majority of the Republican caucuses and primaries as winner takes all whoever amasses an early lead wins the prize.
But winning the first battles doesn't mean, you win the war. It also doesn't mean you have the best candidate winning the nomination, you simply have the first candidate. Dole secured the nomination very early; in some cases by strong-arming local political machines from keeping competitors like Steve Forbes off the ballot, which is what Dole did in New York. He was the presumptive nominee very early and then didn't do much campaigning between the time he won the nomination and the convention.
And neither did McCain. Once McCain secured the nomination, he took a breather...a very long breather until right before the convention. He had a couple of missteps in between where he had to replace key staff, which also didn't help him. However, he did not put that time to good use. This week, he campaigned in North Carolina -- a state with a healthy number of Electoral College votes, which had been trending for Obama. If he had put in an appearance, made the people feel he wasn't taking them for granted and cared about their issues, would he be in the predicament that he's in? Unclear.
What is clear is that the campaign has very noticeably switched gears. Closing up shop in not one, but three states -- conceding those states to Obama -- is not the tactic of someone playing offense. He's playing defense, and as the poll numbers are drifting away, he is now having to concentrate in states in those states he had thought were in his pocket.
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eastham
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Oct 17 @ 6:54PM
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An article from today's New York Times. McCain focuses on "narrow victory" strategy. Like I said, he's playing defense. Click here.
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redtigr
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Oct 19 @ 9:03PM
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As a transplanted resident of Georgia for the past 18 years, and subject to the persistent racism and small-mindedness of much of the populace here, I'd have bet the farm a year ago (figuratively speaking) that a black man could never be elected President in these United States in my lifetime. Like so many others, I have watched with keen interest as the numbers began to demonstrate the electoral vote majority for Obama, but until recently I could not really believe it was happening. Among my acquaintances and friends here, I know of only a handful who will confess to supporting Obama - and I've yet to see one bumper sticker or "yard sign" for Obama/Biden.
Thankfully, Obama's apparent lack of support is skewed here.
On November 11, I hope to be wrong, wrong, wrong - and to rejoice for my country as never before. My faith in humanity will be restored to what it was before the decades following the 1960's stripped it away.
And if Georgia somehow went "blue," I'd be over the moon...
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