Scrambling The Map

Michael Barone argues that we'll need to throw out the red-state, blue-state map for 2008:

If I were running the McCain or Obama campaign, I would be doing in-depth polling and focus groups in 30 to 40 states and nationally, as well, trying to determine which voting groups are moving or moveable toward my candidate and which are moving or moveable the other way. I would certainly not be writing off states that were lost by my party's 2000 and 2004 nominees by 5 percent or more, and I would not assume that states they carried by that much were in the bag.

Meanwhile, at the end of a characteristically fascinating post about the Republican Party's difficulties adapting to the new fundraising landscape, Patrick Ruffini ponders how the Obama campaign might harness its financial wherewithal to try poaching reddish states from the GOP:

What does this mean for the horserace? I am not a big fan of fundraising for fundraising’s sake. Diminishing returns set in. But I think a plausible scenario is that Obama uses a 2 or 3 to 1 cash advantage is to expand the map: to play in 25 states rather than McCain’s 15-20. The most effective TV ads are those that are uncontested. Could Obama run virtually uncontested advertising in Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Georgia to move the numbers starting in March? And organize the African American vote in the South? Or more likely, concentrate on building insurmountable leads in true swing states like Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota and force him to defend GOP-leaning Missouri and Florida?

In a year when the country's trending Democratic, a scrambled map would probably be bad news for the GOP candidate no matter what. But when you throw in Obama's current fundraising advantage and how that might be leveraged, it seems obvious that whatever McCain's potential advantages in a race against the Illinois Senator, he'll be rooting for Hillary tomorrow, not Obama as Stanley Fish suggests. It's a far, far better thing for the McCain camp if Obama has spend some of his bank fending off Hillary in Pennsylvania than if he gets to start running general-election ads in Colorado and Virginia starting next week.

Comments

I guess all of the wonk and pundit wannabes have to keeping telling people that the election may be close so that people will spend time and money on the media. However, anyone with the least bit of realism knows that McCain has as much chance of winning in 2008 as Bob Dole has in 1996.

The more important question is whether the incompetence of the McCain campaign along with strong Democratic turnout will give the Democrats 60 seats in the Senate. Because as soon as the Democrats get 60 seats in the Senate, the Republican Party becomes irrelevant at the national level.

Posted by superdestroyer | March 4, 2008 7:54 AM

Is there any state-by-state polling available?

Posted by Jayhawk Max | March 4, 2008 9:14 AM

Ive been a right-winger all of my life, but I hope McCain doesn't just lose, but that he is slaughtered as bad as Mondale was by Reagan. I also hope the voters tell the exit pollers that his stance on immigration is why they voted for Hillbama in protest. We need to kick the neo-cons out and repudiate Bush-corporate-republicanism.

I plan to either stay home, or vote for some third party candidate with no chance, maybe even Nader.

For all you real conservatives from back in the Reagan era................cancel your subscript to National Review, dont read The Weekly Standard, watch CNN as much as you do FOX---in fact, dont watch FOX. Get your info from other sources. The neo-cons need to be flushed out, and Murdoch is their big funder. Bush and the Establishment, payed for by corpratopia, foisted an inauthentic corporate-boot licker on us in 2000 by stealth. Lets not let that happen again. They dont have the votes, we do. Its time to take back our party. A good stompin' this November will go a long way towards this end. Hillbama will only have 2 years until the next congressional elections to screw things up, and they cant do any worse than Bush has. We can start electing some real republicans (IN THE PRIMARIES FOLKS, dont wait until the General election to do so) again.

Posted by wicked paleo | March 4, 2008 9:20 AM

There is state by state poling available, and it lends some support to Barone's argument. It also calls in to question (to some extent) superdestroyer's optimism, by demonstrating a surprising weakness for Obama among Democrats.

Though it IS early yet, and I do think that Obama has many advantages which don't necessarily show through in current polling, some of which are touched upon by Ross.

Posted by LarryM | March 4, 2008 9:23 AM

LarryM,

Barone carefully avoided naming any states that were carried by both Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 that McCain has a realistic chance of winning. '

That the Republicans are going to have to spend resources in Virginia should tell everyone how weak McCain is.

Posted by superdestroyer | March 4, 2008 9:35 AM

Well let's see. Rasmussen (granted, their overall McCain/Obama numbers are a bit of an outlier) has McCain ahead by 2 in NJ and Obama ahead by only 1 in Wisconsin. I would think Michigan could also be pretty close, though Obama has an 8 point lead there currently. I don't have data for other blue states, though I do seem to recall some worrisome numbers from CA sometime ago (and I DO think that McCain will run surprisingly well in CA though, again, I don't think he will win it).

Do I think those numbers will hold up? No. As I said, I think that Obama has some advantages that don't show up in current polling. But at this point, based on the polling data, someone could argue: "That the Democrats are going to have to spend resources in New Jersey should tell everyone how weak Obama is."

Bottom line, I think our host, in this case anyway, nails it exactly - Barone is correct, but, because of money advantages and the fact that the nation is trending Democratic, that will probably (but not certainly) end up working to Obama's benefit.

Posted by LarryM | March 4, 2008 10:41 AM

There is no fundraising gap. Whatever McCain lacks in his own campaign's fundraising will be more than made up for by conservative 527s.

Posted by Ron | March 4, 2008 10:50 AM

And, to clarify a couple things:

(1) This is by no means a brief for Clinton. She runs weaker vs. McCain in current polling than Obama does.

(2) It's also not a brief for McCain. While I have reservations about Obama (to say the least), I think McCain would be a disaster.

But for people who support Obama - either wholeheartedly, or somewhat reluctantly (like myself), one of the biggest dangers going forward is going to be complacency. Obama will IMO end up winning, and may even do so by a large margin, but it is not going to be an easy campaign.

Posted by LarryM | March 4, 2008 10:53 AM

Any pundit/wonk who believes that McCain has lose Virginia and Colorado but win New Jersey probably needs to either start back on their lithium or get themselves to Rehab. There is no reason to believe such a scenario.

Posted by superdestroyer | March 4, 2008 11:24 AM

superdestroyer,

The point isn't that McCain will win NJ but lose VA. The point is he could win both, or lose both (or, of course, win VA and lose NJ). It's closer than one would expect, currently, in both states, and in other traditionally "blue" and "red" states.

Again, one could turn your argument around, and say that "Any pundit/wonk who believes that Obama can lose New Jersey and Minnesota but win Virginia probably needs to either start back on their lithium or get themselves to Rehab. There is no reason to believe such a scenario." That statement, like yours, is technically correct, but kind of misses the point.

Posted by LarryM | March 4, 2008 11:32 AM

No way McCain takes NJ. Polls early in the GE campaign often show GOP with some strength, but they lose the GE in the end, usually by at least 6-7 points.

Posted by CParis | March 4, 2008 3:50 PM

McCain can take New Jersey. He is actually the perfect type of Tom Kean moderate Repub. My people here are utterly digusted with Dems and its only getting worse with Corzines proposed 800% increase in Road Tolls.

Posted by Dennis D | March 4, 2008 8:01 PM

Silly to compare Dole to McCain. Bob Dole faced a very popular sitting President.

Posted by Dennis D | March 4, 2008 8:03 PM

McCain could very well win against either Obama or Clinton. It's scarily plausible.

Posted by Korha | March 4, 2008 8:24 PM

Re: He is actually the perfect type of Tom Kean moderate Repub.

Who wants to continue all of George Bush's policies. Yep, just what the country is clamoring for!

Posted by JonF | March 5, 2008 6:38 AM