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overselling FL and underselling MT and OH?

Submitted September 6, 2008 - 4:14 pm by Aranae (not verified)

My first impressions are that you may be overselling the case in Florida and underselling Ohio and Montana.

Florida is one of the few states that Clinton would have done better in. It's also one of the states where Obama's choice of Biden will help him and McCain's choice of Palin will hurt him. Nevertheless, I see this mostly being about the top of the ticket here and the demographics of age is a tough nut to crack. It definitely warrants effort, but strkes me as more of a hail mary pass than Ohio. There have been few polls showing Obama with a lead of any size, but several with a solid McCain lead. Maybe these grandparents day cards will help, but fear, age, and experience has a real chance of trumping hope there.

Anything short of a big nationwide victory for McCain will involve a nail-biter in Ohio. Obama definitely has a ceiling as about half the population will not vote for him under any circumstances. But this is a ground game/turnout state. Chanting "Ohio Ohio Ohio" like Russert did in 04 would be foolish (and maybe that's your point), but whichever side turns out the most voters (minus election irregularities) will win here. That's reason enough to keep dumping a large (but not foolishly large) amount of resources in the state.

I see two possible reasons that Montana is off your list. First, I think Palin might really help here. She's obviously eliminated the somewhat longshot of Alaska from contention and Montana is the most Alaska-like of the remaining states. Second is that Montana will turn blue after Colorado turns blue and Colorado has the advantage of its hispanic population. Colorado + either NM or NV is likely to be a victory, but I still think Montana could be an important part of a backup plan if things go poorly in Michigan. There's no Ross Perot in this election, but the state likes Obama far more than it liked Bill Clinton. Plus, this could be the only state in the country where Bob Barr has an actual effect on the outcome.

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