McCain Going for Pennsylvania
CNN reported Tuesday that the McCain campaign was considering giving up on Colorado, a state that has not supported a Democrat in presidential elections in over 20 years. McCain is down 5% in the latest Colorado polls, which is indeed quite some, but which should not be considered unovercomable.
On the other hand, the McCain will now focus completely on Pennsylvania. The strange thing? McCain is down 10% or more in most recent polls.
Yet, the McCain campaign seemingly believes that they can make a comeback in this state, yet not in Colorado, where the gap is twice as small.
A top adviser to McCain told CNN: “The election hinges on Pennsylvania. We’ll win Virginia and Nevada in the end, but lose without Pennsylvania.”
Another top adviser said that they “are not giving up on Colorado” but “need to have a math scenario that doesn’t count on” winning this state. In that math scenario, they need Pennsylvania.
Barack Obama’s campaign is spending $1 million on advertisements in Colorado every week right now. The McCain campaign is also spending big time, yet is unable to keep up; McCain spends $700,000 a week on advertisements now, and will continue to do so until election day, or so some advisers say.
The same adviser who said they are not giving up on Colorado said the campaign could very well end up spending $1.5 million a week on advertisements in this state. Since McCain has less money to spend than Obama, however, they have to be careful; they can only spend the money once. When they spend so heavily, they have to carry the state.
Meanwhile, McCain is now ahead in Florida and Ohio polls, two other important battleground states. Sadly for McCain, however, all battleground states are must wins for him, making it virtually impossible for him to beat Obama – who is now even taking on McCain in traditionally Republican strongholds.
Speaking as a Western Pennsylvanian, this move makes almost no sense to me. I am seeing some internal documents that suggests the PA race is a little closer, or at least a lot softer of an Obama lead than most of the public polling suggests (McCain has growth potential in the traditional Republican base area of the “T” and Appalachia), but I have seen jack squat on GOP GOTV operations, and the Congressional candidates are in every man for themselves mode right now.
This does not make a lot of sense to me…
I’m kind of with fester. Although McCain would look good being in Penn, he definitely needs states he knows he has a chance in.
Obviously, if McCain can afford it, all states he can afford and are not winning should be fair game. But I hope McCain isn’t really focusing on Penn completely. That would be a terrible mistake.