Read The Fine Print On Big Campaign Moves

by: Chris Bowers

Mon Oct 20, 2008 at 23:00


There was apparently a major revelation about each campaign tonight, with McCain reportedly writing off Colorado and Obama canceling his appearances on Thursday and Friday in order to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii. However, I encourage everyone to look at the fine print in both of these moves, which are not as earth shaking as they might appear.

First, look closely at what John King actually said about McCain and Colorado. (More in the extended entry)

Chris Bowers :: Read The Fine Print On Big Campaign Moves
Here is the King quote (emphasis mine):

Most people top in the McCain campaign now believe New Mexico and Iowa are gone, that Barack Obama will win New Mexico and Iowa. They are now off the dream list of the McCain campaign. More interestingly, most top people inside the McCain campaign think Colorado is gone.

Note the "most." King didn't say that McCain has written off Colorado (or Iowa or New Mexico), just that most members of the campaign think it is lost. They would be accurate on that count. However, I'll believe McCain pulls out of Colorado when he stops running ads there. Or, say, when his campaign stops holding rallies there, as Palin just did earlier this evening. Giving up on Colorado, where McCain trails by 4.5%, and going for Pennsylvania, where he trails by at least 10.0%, would be a colossally stupid move by McCain. Gore and Kerry won PA. In 2006, Dems won four House seats in PA, plus both statewide elections by 18% (Senate) and 21% (Governor) respectively. And then, Dems gained several hundred thousand voter registrations on Republicans, to reach 49% and a one million voter registration lead. The idea that McCain can win Pennsylvania is laughable. Ha ha ha.

Second, yes, Obama really is canceling some of his Thursday and Friday appearances to visit his sick grandmother in Hawaii. However, check out which appearances he is canceling, and which ones he is not:

The change of plans means Obama will scrap scheduled rallies Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa, and Madison, Wisc. He will instead head to Indianapolis, Ind., for a morning event, leave for Hawaii and return to the campaign trail Saturday.

Obama is canceling trips to Iowa and Wisconsin, two states that are already in the bag. Obama leads by 8, 12, 15, 17, 10, 10 and 10 according to the last seven polling firms in Wisconsin. In Iowa, he leads by double-digits, and by over 30% among those who have already voted. However, he is still appearing in Indiana, which leans toward McCain but is still much closer than the other two.

In short, Obama had a deep blue hole in his schedule that gave him a chance to go see his grandmother. It probably will look good too, as not visiting your dying grandmother isn't the best way to win over undecideds. Then again, knowing my grandmothers, were I in a position to become President, they probably would have demanded that I stay on the campaign trail. But hey, I grew up Catholic, and guilt works in mysterious ways.

So, I'm not convinced these are the big moves they are made out to be. McCain hasn't officially pulled out of Colorado, and Obama just cancelled a couple of events in what are now deep blue states. Obviously, they are worth noting, but I don't see either as big deals.

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Read The Fine Print On Big Campaign Moves | 25 comments
Pennsylvania. (0.00 / 0)
   Actually Democrats make up 51% of registered voters.  There are 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans in Pennsylvania.  
  Point taken.

John McCain lets lobbyists shape his economic policy
But why the Colorado leak? (4.00 / 2)
I don't understand why top McCain people would be hinting of pulling out of Colorado. For what purpose? Isn't such news terribly depressing to GOTV efforts in the state?  
Dissatisfaction about campaign priorities (4.00 / 2)
In a losing campaign, it's not uncommon that the top people start worrying about how they come out of things.  The real mercenaries talk to the press about how things would be good if only the candidate listened to them.

So there are people who likely think that McCain is spreading his resources too thin, and Schmidt and McCain disagree.  So the consultant talks to the press and says Schmidt et al are wrong.

Talking about it isn't in the campaign's best interest, certainly.  But the consultant may think it's in his own interest to tell the reporter this.

[ Parent ]
Somehow reminds of the Clinton campaign... (0.00 / 0)
what with all those consultants not supporting their candidates message, but publicly washing dirty laundry. Hardly a recipe for success. Politicians should keep records and take care not to hire such an egocentric sniper for their campaign. But, ok, too many politicians don't care...
[ Parent ]
margins (0.00 / 0)
I doubt either the McCain campaign or the Obama campaign believe that Obama is ahead by double digits in Pennsylvania, otherwise why would both campaigns be competing there so feverishly? Obama has spent time there recently, as well as Bill & Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. There has to be something else at work here. From what I heard, the Obama campaign is worried about white resistance in Pennsylvania. Of all blue states susceptible to racism, Pennsylvania would be at the top of my list.
But, they aren't going back... (0.00 / 0)
...They said that the next 10 days will be all focused on red states... no blue states... that includes PA.

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
PA (0.00 / 0)
I didn't read too much into this either, and was relieved to read what campaign stops Obama plans to miss.

But even if McCain stays in CO, which it seems he should, why is he so confident on PA? Campaign posturing? Sure, maybe. But according to 538's handy chart, PA is not the best place to be spending money for a nearly-broke campaign. Point being, I started to worry today about voting in PA. We know there is no early voting. And this handy map linked today by the Votemaster tells us that PA has among the weakest voting standards of any swing state.

Chris, I know you have warned about unfounded cries of vote fraud, but when do seemingly irrational campaign decisions start to stink so much that we are forced to pursue ulterior motives? For now I'll just assume McCain thinks Wright will have a particularly large impact on PA, though a 10-point difference is really hard to imagine.  

"Don't hate the media, become the media" -Jello Biafra

Here's a campaign update (4.00 / 8)
Most McCain staffers are spending inordinate amounts of time and energy figuring out how to avoid being blamed for the upcoming defeat, and are devising "I-told-you-so" stories to explain how things would have worked out better if everyone had only listened to them.

And I know that without having talked with a single staffer on the McCain campaign!

Are you accounting for early voting? (0.00 / 0)
I agree that trying to win Pennsylvania seems like a ridiculous gambit on its face, but it does not have any early voting, so that McCain would only need to be ahead there on November 4.  Colorado is already voting, and so even if McCain were to turn it around over the next few weeks, a certain percentage of the electorate, much of it likely pro-Obama, would already be locked in.  It's not clear to me that Colorado is the better option for McCain when that is factored in (I mean, both options are shitty, but you get the idea).
50% in CO have requested absentee ballots... (0.00 / 0)
...it's incredible, really!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
really? (0.00 / 0)
where did u read that?
[ Parent ]
Honestly not surprising (0.00 / 0)
A majority of voters in Washington state vote early by mail.

All voters in Oregon do so.

[ Parent ]
Not the best source, but... (0.00 / 0)
...I heard this mentioned on Fox News today. I was surprised too.  

Self-refuting Christine O'Donnell is proof monkeys are still evolving into humans
[ Parent ]
My take on PA (0.00 / 0)
This is my take. I think they believe because there is only same day voting that the race will close through heavy negative campaigning, some of it directly targeted at specific constituencies.
But I also, personally, think this. I grew up in the Philadelphia area. People like Schmidt (a Rove prodigy who I imagine has little practical understanding of working class northeastern culture) probably don't understand the area and believe that a) we're still in the 1980s with regards to race issues and b) that McCain is still viewed by suburban women as the same man as he was in '00. As if the last 6 months haven't happened.

Sending Palin to campaign in the Philly area - even in any eastern part of the state is just tone-deaf, IMO. Her style just doesn't play here. That faux folksy heartland thing doesn't play in this area. Not to say that Eastern PA is like the Bay Area, but its not conservative in the way Rove-style politics works. They're reaching back to the Nixon era here.

The fact that a guy like Michael Smerconish endorsed Obama should tell you all you need to know. He's EXACTLY the kind of person they need to have on their side for a strategy like this to have any chance of success. He's a pure Rizzo-crat, pro-police, anti-black radicalism - made a big part of his career campaigning against Mumia abu-jamal and in favor Daniel Faulkner and his widow. And he's endorsing Obama. (I don't know if you know the Mumia case, but it became something of an international cause for leftist activists, which is GREATLY resented by many in Philadelphia - basically, Mumia, a black radical, was accused and convicted of killing a cop - Faulkner - in 1982, but there are doubts about his guilt)

my (Jewish) grandmother (0.00 / 0)
used to say she'd never vote for a Jew for president, because if something went wrong, "They'll blame the Jews."

Join the Iowa progressive community at Bleeding Heartland.
Well, the Hawaii thing isnt exactly nothing. (0.00 / 0)
I'd already read somewhere that Obama was cancelling the Madison trip, but he could easily have scheduled other events in Indiana and Ohio for the 36 hours he'll probably be in Hawaii.  He is leaving something on the field by flying out there.  

You're right that those particular events were likely to be cancelled anyway though.  Poor Obamaniacs in Madison...

Yes, poor us (0.00 / 0)
I assumed he was just coming to Madison for the press and photo ops that a massive rally would provide. When Kerry came here in 2004 with Springstein and the Foo Fighters, he drew 80K - a record at the time. I'm sure that Obama would draw more. Its too bad, but really, we are a group that he does not have to work too hard to energize. His grandma is more important.
[ Parent ]
Ok, maybe someone should say that (4.00 / 3)
we hope that Obama's grandmother will get better or are we all a little too wrapped up in trying to see the political aspect of every move?  
Thank you!! ... (4.00 / 1)
and Chris is missing the boat a little here .. because Obama's grandmother is the person that basically raised him ..  so she is more like a mother to Obama
[ Parent ]
We forget the guy is human (4.00 / 2)
His mother and father have been dead for years, and I'm sure that the passing of his grandmother will be a major rite of passage for him.  Mostly, he's done what he can to get elected.  His campaign is run by tremendously gifted people that he selected and trusts.  So he can take a couple of days to say good bye to his grandmother, who very likely he will never see again.

Sometimes, we expect and ask too much of our political leaders.  Let the man be.

[ Parent ]
right, he's got to go (4.00 / 1)
Of course he does.  And if she is really facing the end of life, she probably doesn't have the strength or awareness of events to order him not to make the trip.  
[ Parent ]
and he learned from when his mom died (4.00 / 1)
Remember, he didn't come back to Hawaii when his mom finally passed on.  Apparently, from his writings, he's regretted that quite seriously ever since.

I can't imagine his letting that sort of thing happen again with Toots.

If she's not getting ready to go now I bet we'll see more hurried flights to Hawaii in the next month or so, possibly with the rest of the family in tow as well.

[ Parent ]
Chris, did you really mean to say this in this manner? (0.00 / 0)
"It probably will look good too, as not visiting your dying grandmother isn't the best way to win over undecideds."

Considering his grandmother is the last "parent" he has, losing his dad at a very young age, his mother at a younger age than most, then his grandfather, I think your comment is crass.

I am hoping it was a tongue-in-cheek statement, it is so out of character to all you have ever written before.

Maybe an edit of that statement?

Imho he only got carried away by rationality, (0.00 / 0)
understandably at this point, with the election round the corner. This long campaign takes its toll, making us sometimes forget that the candidate is only human, too, and has emotional needs of his own. However, despite the missing empathy in the phrasing, Chris has a point: Even if Obama couldn't stand his grandma, it wouldn't look good not to care about her in this critical moment.  
[ Parent ]
I get the idea now about no early voting (0.00 / 0)
At least there is a slice of sense to it now. But what good is it to McCain winning PA on November 4th if he has already lost CO, VA and NC, maybe others, due to early voting?
Read The Fine Print On Big Campaign Moves | 25 comments
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