Obama plans to run McCain ragged across the US
WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democrat Barack Obama is broadening the playing field against his Republican White House rival John McCain with a nationwide trawl for votes that could, if successful, produce a landslide.
New Quinnipiac University polls Thursday showed Obama adding Colorado to the slate of states taken by 2004 nominee John Kerry. Other surveys have the Democrat ahead in other major battlegrounds such as Virginia and Ohio.
"November can't get here soon enough for Senator Barack Obama. He has a lead everywhere, and if nothing changes between now and November he will make history," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"But Senator Obama should not be picking out the drapes for the Oval Office just yet," he stressed, noting that his current lead was little different to Kerry's at this stage four years ago.
In any case, the Illinois senator is not settling for a hard-fought battle in one or two swing states as he rolls out a 50-state strategy designed to stretch McCain's resources to the limit.
"We're simply not going to wake up on November 4 worried about one state," Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said at a briefing Wednesday, adamant that this year would be unlike the knife-edge contests of 2000 and 2004.
"We have a lot of different ways to get to 270," he said, referring to the magic number of electoral votes needed for victory in the election.
Plouffe is throwing staff, volunteers and television advertising at 14 states won by President George W. Bush in 2004, in addition to smaller operations in states that are an even deeper shade of Republican red.
Plouffe said Obama's "first strategic goal" was to retain Kerry's states. Of those, McCain scents opportunity among the white working-class voters of Michigan and Pennsylvania, and in independent-minded New Hampshire.
But in turn, Obama is intent on flipping red states that have not voted for a Democrat in years. Top of the list are Virginia, Colorado, Missouri and Iowa.
A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey Tuesday said that in a head-to-head national contest, Obama had 49 percent support against 37 percent for McCain. Newsweek last Friday had Obama ahead of McCain by 51 percent to 36.
But as Plouffe noted, the general election will be fought state by state and not on an imaginary national battlefield -- just like Obama's primary campaign that saw off the dogged challenge of Hillary Clinton.
Much of Obama's yawning lead comes on the back of Clinton supporters rallying behind the Democrats' new champion after the bruising nominating epic.
Campaign brains such as Plouffe are more focussed on surveys in key states, levels of enthusiasm for the election contenders, and the extent of their grassroots organizing.
On those metrics, McCain trails Obama, who has become the first candidate since the Watergate scandal to reject public financing for his campaign, so reversing his vow to work with the Republican to preserve the system.
With a three-to-one fundraising advantage over McCain, Obama will be free to pile up advertising and get-out-the-vote operations in far more states than Kerry could ever compete in.
The Democrat is now airing his first general election ad, a patriotic ode called "Country I Love," in 18 states including Republican bastions such as Alaska, Montana and North Dakota that Plouffe says will be in play in November.
But beyond costly advertising, the Obama campaign is also taking a leaf from Bush's book to mobilize local supporters -- a "persuasion army," in Plouffe's words -- who can knock on doors and spread the word among friends and family.
That is where levels of motivation become crucial.
The LA Times poll found that among voters who plan to vote for McCain, more than half were "not enthusiastic" about the Republican. In contrast, 81 percent of Obama voters said they were enthusiastic.
The recent polls have given Bush record-low approval ratings, and found far more voters identifying themselves as Democratic instead of Republican, which could portend the Democrats tightening their grip on Congress in November.
But historically, voters have liked one party in the White House and another in charge of Congress. Therein lies hope for McCain and his promise of assured leadership in troubled times.
