McCain on defensive in 'Bush states'
AFP
Published: Thursday October 9, 2008
Less than four weeks from election day, John McCain is in trouble on supposedly safe Republican turf in a string of states which President George W. Bush won in 2004.
With time running short, latest opinion polls show McCain's attempt to take on Democrat Barack Obama in the crucial swing states that will decide the election complicated by his need to solidify his own battle lines.
McCain trails Obama in most recent state polls in Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Nevada and Colorado, all of which Bush won in his surge to reelection in 2004.
The Arizona senator is also locked in a closer-than-expected struggle with his rival in normally solidly Republican Indiana and North Carolina, where the president coasted to double-digit wins over John Kerry.
While clinging on in the 'Bush states' McCain also trails in latest polls in vital swing states Ohio and Pennsylvania, which form vital paving slabs in any candidate's road to the 270 electoral votes needed to grab the White House.
"McCain is playing a strategy of defense to protect those states that Bush won in 2004," said Dante Scala, professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire.
"There seem to be all sorts of leaks in the boat."
By contrast, Obama looks strong in Kerry states, so if the race is steady until November, he may have a choice of targets which would take him over the electoral vote threshold.
McCain enlisted the help of his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, a heroine to the Republican conservative base, to try to fire up support Wednesday in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
But it was Palin's one-day blitz in conservative strongholds in Florida earlier this week which caught the Obama campaign's eye.
"What is very clear is they are not playing offense right now," senior strategist David Axelrod told reporters on Obama's plane on Tuesday.
"They are playing defense. We are competitive in many, many states that George Bush won in 2004 and they are having to defend those states."
Already trailing in the polls, McCain's plight deepened last week when he pulled out of Michigan, a state which went Democratic in 2004 but which Republicans had hoped to capture this time.
The McCain campaign is stressing that the only poll that counts is the election on November 4.
"Nobody has voted yet," said McCain advisor Nicolle Wallace on CNN Tuesday.
McCain's political director Mike DuHaime argued on MSNBC Wednesday that Obama's advantage had come about suddenly, so could quickly shift back.
"We've got four weeks to go, 27 days, so there certainly is time, plenty of time in politics," he said.
McCain's frailty in some Republican states may have been behind the new, sharply negative turn in his campaign, which appears to be aimed at firing up Republican voters as Bush did in 2000 and 2004.
But some analysts are asking whether a "base strategy" will work at a time when the US economy is in tumult and Democrats will marshall a vastly expanded voter base of their own.
No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio, and it was in the economically struggling midwestern state that Bush finally squelched the Kerry challenge in 2004.
But with the economic crunch biting deep, the state, a toss-up just a few weeks ago, appears to be trending towards Obama in recent polling, and the Democrat was due to launch a two-day bus tour in the state Thursday.
A CNN poll Monday had Obama up three percent, while the latest ABC survey put him up six percent. A Fox/Rasmussen poll had McCain leading by a slender one percent of the vote.
In Florida, Obama has also come from behind, with polls suggesting he is profiting from the financial crisis which voters blame on Republican leadership.
Six polls over the last week and a half have Obama up by between two and seven points in the state which controversially handed Bush the White House in 2000. McCain was up in a single poll.
Another staunchly solidly Republican state, Virginia, also appears to hold promise for Obama. He leads in five of the most recent polls, while McCain is up in two.
Republicans have won the state in every presidential election since 1964, but the Democrat, helped by an influx of immigrants and young people to the Washington suburbs, has high hopes of turning the tide.
Obama led in other Bush states: Iowa, by up to 10 points, Colorado by up to six points and in Nevada between two and seven points in the most recent surveys.
The race was also in the low single figures in Indiana and North Carolina, which have been safe Republican territory for decades.
In Pennsylvania, which went Democrat in 2004, Obama had a lead of seven to 15 points in recent polls. |
