The last several weeks have seen both John McCain and Barack Obama rolling out their respective paths to electoral victory in November. Obama’s path is much easier, as nearly all national polls released since he officially clinched the Democratic nomination earlier this month have shown him with a moderate lead over McCain, one that extends to many swing states as well. However, upon close analysis of both electoral strategies, I believe some key flaws can easily be found.
Perhaps the most poorly formulated is John McCain’s, outlined in a web “briefing” at http://www.johnmccain.com/pathtovictory/. If this seriously represents the McCain camp’s strategy, than he is clearly in trouble, because it’s totally delusional. First, the numbers don’t even add up. It lists 66 electoral votes as “leaning Democrat”, but shows only New Jersey as falling into that category. More significant is the fact that Virginia and North Carolina are listed as “solid GOP”. Recent polling demonstrates that this is clearly not the case, with Obama even leading Virginia in some of the most recent polls. Furthermore, the Obama campaign is clearly focusing on these two states, along with Georgia, which were targets in a recent add buy.
Of the states listed as “tossup”, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Washington are included. This is not the case. Obama has something around an 8 point lead in Pennsylvania right now, and at least that in the other two. McCain is going to have to invest significant amounts of time and money in each of these three states to have a chance at a win, which appears more and more unlikely. These are but a few examples of the myopic view that McCain seems to be taking towards the electoral map.
The problem, of course, with this is that the McCain campaign’s delusions (and presumably the delusions of many supporters) are clouding what will certainly be a difficult election, and possibly precluding any chance he may have of victory. As the Bush-Rove team demonstrated in 2000 and 2004, elections are won by grassroots organizations and knowledge of the electoral map down to the district level. If McCain’s strategy team can’t even grasp electoral strategy at the state or in some cases regional level, precinct and district organization must be utter chaos.
On the flip side of this coin is Barack Obama, flush with a commanding lead in the polls. Undoubtedly, if the election were held today, he would score a commanding win. That said, his campaign strategy includes question marks as well. As reported in a recent Politico article, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11320.html, Obama is not content to focus merely on the presidential election, but wishes to influence races down the ticket as well. To this end, he plans on adopting something of a fifty state strategy for the fall, making concerted efforts to court voters in places like Texas in the hopes of helping Democratic senate and house candidates.
Furthermore, in Texas especially, he hopes to lead the Democrats to victory in the state senate and house, securing a narrow Democratic majority. As the article points out, Texas redistricting will occur this term, and if the Democrats can control the process of redistricting, he feels they can make further gains.
While no one would deny that he is the current front runner, his election is not certain. There is a long time to go until November. As many commentators have picked up on, this strategy is extremely risky. If it works, it could go a long way to establishing a lasting Democratic majority in Washington. But if it stretches Obama too thin for him to remain in front in several key swing states, it could cost him the election. I think the bottom line here is this: it’s been 8 years since a Democrat held the presidency, and many, many years since one as liberal as Obama held the presidency. They have some HUGE advantages this election cycle with the sour attitude most voters have towards the Bush administration. As long as he doesn’t do something increadably stupid, he should win. But as John Kerry found out, anti-Bush rhetoric alone will not get the job done. Therefore, the Democrats ought to be cautious, and in this atmosphere, Obama’s strategic decision seems to be at best over-energetic and at worst arrogant.
Tags: electoral map, mccain, obama, strategies
