The Economy And The Election
By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Economy, McCainA pair of articles out this weekend outline the extent to which the economic situation has altered the political landscape, and created an opportunity for Barack Obama to not only win, but win big.
Yesterday, the New York Times’ Adam Nagourney noted that the economy has given Barack Obama openings in several states that George W. Bush won four years ago:
The turmoil on Wall Street and the weakening economy are changing the contours of the presidential campaign map, giving new force to Senator Barack Obama’s ambitious strategy to make incursions into Republican territory, while leading Senator John McCain to scale back his efforts to capture Democratic states.
Mr. Obama has what both sides describe as serious efforts under way in at least nine states that voted for President Bush in 2004, including some that neither side thought would be on the table this close to Election Day. In a visible sign of the breadth of Mr. Obama’s aspirations, he is using North Carolina — a state that Mr. Bush won by 13 percentage points in 2004, and where Mr. Obama is now spending heavily on advertisements — as his base to prepare this weekend for the debate on Tuesday.
By contrast, Mr. McCain is vigorously competing in just four states where Democrats won in 2004: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, followed by Wisconsin and Minnesota. His decision last week to pull out of Michigan reflected in part the challenge that the declining economy has created for Republicans, given that they have held the White House for the last eight years.
But Mr. McCain’s abrupt decision, which caught many members of his own party by surprise, also underlined the tactical political squeeze he finds himself in: by using his fund-raising advantage to compete in so many places, Mr. Obama has forced Mr. McCain to spend money to hold on in what had been viewed as safe Republican states, like Indiana and Missouri, while limiting Mr. McCain’s ability to play offense on Democratic turf.
Currently, Obama has leads in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Iowa, and Colorado; all of which George W. Bush won in 2004, and which together represent 94 Electoral Votes. Working from the 2004 results, Obama needs to flip just 18 of those Electoral votes from Bush’s win column to his. His options on how to get there are, in many ways, wide open right now.
McCain, on the other hand, has a far more daunting task. He either has to hold on to every state George Bush won in 2004 — a seemingly impossible task given where the polls stand in states like New Mexico and Iowa — or he has to flip a state that Kerry won in 2004:
“We are currently competing aggressively in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico,” Strimple said. “The combination of any of those states, we have to get 10 more electoral votes in order to be successful and have Mr. McCain as the next president of the United States.”
But Democrats — and public polls — show problems for McCain in Iowa, New Mexico and, increasingly, in Minnesota.
Pennsylvania offers an especially enticing opportunity for McCain, with its 21 electoral votes and large swaths of white, working-class voters who favored Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary contest.
McCain and Palin have visited the state repeatedly, making an aggressive play for votes in the Democratically inclined suburbs of Philadelphia, where Obama did not do as well as expected in the primary, and in the more traditionally conservative areas farther west.
Recent polls showed Obama forging a clear lead in the state, and Obama advisers think they will benefit from the surge in Democratic registration there this year. There are now about 1.1 million more Democrats registered in the state than Republicans.
And that’s where the problem arises.
While McCain was once competitive in Pennsylvania, recent polls there show Obama breaking out to a double-digit lead, and the same appears to be true in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Moreover, Pennsylvania hasn’t gone for a Republican since 1988, Wisconsin has not gone for a Republican for President since Reagan’s landslide in 1984, and Minnesota hasn’t gone Republican since Nixon’s landslide in 1972.
In a year like this, it seems unlikely that any of that will change.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Economy, McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 5th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
It’s like I’ve been saying here, and no doubt sounding like a broken record, for a couple of weeks ago: For the Obama campaign, the sudden crisis on Wall Street, emerging when it did, was the political equivalent of winning the lottery.
For the McCain campaign, it’s been more like a Volkswagen-sized meteor hitting your house while you’re fast asleep inside – an event that’s extremely unlikely, utterly devastating, and all but impossible to prevent or prepare for.