Florida seems to have some kind of magic allure on Democratic presidential aspirants. Like Al Gore and John Kerry before him, Barack Obama seems to be putting on a full court press to win the Sunshine State. Over a month ago, Obama sent his most successful political people to Miami and Tampa. Barack, Biden, and Michelle have flooded the state with recent ‘Early Voting’ appearances. Obama held two huge rallies there yesterday, including one with Bill Clinton. He did a joint appearance there with Hillary Clinton. And now Al Gore has announced he will campaign in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale.
What’s odd about this is that Obama doesn’t really need Florida to win. But he doesn’t need North Carolina, either, and he’s invested a tremendous amount of time and money there, as well. Ordinarily, I’d be concerned with all this focus on superfluous states. It’s as if Obama isn’t playing just to win, but to blow McCain out.
Things look good, but not great for Obama in Florida. It’s one of the few battleground states (along with Missouri) where the Republicans still own the governorship. It’s not one of the states like New Hampshire, Virginia, and Colorado, where we’ve seen a recent Democratic trend. So, why is Obama placing so much emphasis on Florida?
I have to assume that the Obama campaign is as good at internal polling as they are at everything else. They must think they have Ohio and Colorado and Nevada in the bag. Today, Biden is in Missouri and Obama will finish up there, too, after stops in Sarasota and Virginia Beach. Missouri is another state that is polling extremely close, and I’m glad to see the campaign focus on winning the state. As for McCain, he’s spending all day in Ohio, which is a state Obama really does not want to lose. Both Palin and Biden will do stops in Pennsylvania today. I’m not worried about Pennsylvania (though I do wish we had early voting here), but I am concerned that Ohio could slip away with all this focus on Florida.
The best I can come up as an explanation for this pattern of campaigning is that Obama wanted to force McCain to spend tons of money in Florida to prevent him for going on offense anywhere else. In other words, it isn’t really about winning Florida, although that now seems like a plausible outcome, but about winning Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. With McCain’s budgetary constraints, he simply can’t flood any one state with significant late spending. So, I think all this focus on Florida is a case of the strategy that the best defense is a good offense.
He needs to knock one of Ohio, NC, or Florida out of McCain’s hands and keep Pennsylvania. If he does that McCain can’t win.
Ohio is really screwed up as a state. We should be a lock for a Dem this year, but “Joe the Plumber” is actually quite representative of a lot of our Know-nothings. If Obama needed Ohio to win it, I’d be really, really worried about his chances. Fortunately he has a lot of paths to winning that don’t include Ohio. I hope he wins Ohio, but it’s best if he doesn’t count on it and makes sure he keeps as many balls in the air as he can (and make McCain fight as much as possible for every EV he’s going to get).
I was at the Obama rally here in Raleigh yesterday and here are a few notes/observations:
Liberals are fun people to hang out with in a line for 2.5 hours. There were people of every color and age there and to a person they were all happy, smiling, patient and kind. There is a palpable sense of Hope™ among all of them that is not easily confused with something else. It’s hope, dammit and it’s pretty.
Estimates put the crowd at around 28,000 with several thousand more turned away because they couldn’t make it through security before he started speaking. This on two days notice.
Perfect fall day for an outdoor event. Cool and sunny with a brilliant Carolina blue sky.
Favorite anecdote from the day: There was a group of African American second-graders from a local charter school in attendance as part of a field trip for the best behaved of them. As they entered the vast line with my sons and I one little girl looked around awestruck and then said to no one in particular “there are WHITE people here, too?!”
I love that comment.
what a great story.
It’s the symbolism. Recapturing Florida, and now with Gore participating, would be sweet closure on what was so grievously lost in 2000 and swings the doors wide open for an Obama mandate.
Exactly that. I’m still saying that 400 is attainable – the Palin Principle will come into play…
play to win. Force your opponent into making mistakes. Like football terminology..”a prevent defense, prevents you from winning.”
He HAS to blow it out!
The Republicans will cheat, lie, steal, and do anything possible to get fraudulent machine counts. ANYTHING.
I’m still not happy that Obama didn’t do more to protest New Hampshire’s voting irregularities. Even the republicans knew something was screwy… and when the memory cards went home with a dual-citizen perp? Recounting was made difficult and expensive. And Diebold is hiding under yet another corporate name. Like a shell game.
If the tallies are within 5%, Rovian operatives will flip them to McCain, and it will be hard to track. A double-digit lead is harder manipulate… like swimming up the spillway of a dam.
Because of embargoing on exit polls, Obama won’t be surfing the momentum. (I wish I knew why people would let the voting habits of others influence them rather than thinking for themselves.) However, I’d like to see the map being painted a pretty bright blue across state after state. 🙂
Florida is the largest population swing state that is voting early. Key words: “voting early”
The voting early thing is definitely the key here. In a PA where there is no early voting the Rethugs are throwing every possible slam at BO at the moment. I got Robocalled. My wife got forwarded an email with them claiming BO couldn’t get a security clearance or join the FBI with his terrorist associations. The GOP 527s are starting the Wright crap too. All this is happening because they are trying to build up the negatives at the last minute when (in there mind) there is not enough time to respond. The early voting is preventing this from having an effect.
Or it could be that Obama means it about putting a new face on America and sees that big blue blob at the ass-end of the South as a giant step toward a permanent change in the political geography of this country.
We don’t have early voting here in Missouri – just absentee voting for which you must have an “excuse”. Even with that, the St. Louis County Board of Elections is getting 1700 people a day voting absentee. I don’t think that counts the mail-ins. Two of my colleagues waited in line for over an hour yesterday to vote absentee because they will be in other counties doing GOTV on Tuesday. They were talking to a staff person and she said she’s never seen anything like it.
Missouri is going to be close because it always is. I feel that Obama will pull it out – but as always, it’s just a feeling. There’s never anything tangible in Missouri to hang your hat on – you just have to go with feelings. And out-state Missouri could always screw it up for us.
There are some things that have changed since 2004.
and, in the end, I believe Obama believes that Florida is McCain’s Pennsylvania (the state in which he bankrupts McCain)