Dan Balz's Take
Obama and McCain Pursuing Different Paths on Changed Map
Bales of hay on Arrington Farms in Brightwood, Va., declare a preference for Barack Obama. (Jahi Chikwendiu / TWP)
By Dan Balz
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- John McCain and Barack Obama began the final full day of 2008 election campaigning as a study in contrasts. Obama appeared coolly confident about the outcome on Tuesday, McCain doggedly determined to disprove all the doubters.
McCain's Monday began at midnight in Miami with a raucous rally that would signal a long day of cross country campaigning. His traveling press got little sleep, with a 5:30 a.m. baggage call and then a morning flight to Tampa. By the time McCain's Monday ends, he will have been in seven states, only one of which did not vote for President Bush four years ago.
Obama arrived at his Jacksonville hotel around 1:30 a.m. Monday, but his first stop wasn't until about 8 a.m. -- a workout at a nearby gym. His press corps started on a more leisurely schedule than McCain's, gathering at 9:30 a.m. for a security sweep before loading up at 10 a.m. for Obama's first of just three events of the day. No one could recall a candidate starting his events so late on the final day of campaigning.
Obama's Monday itinerary includes rallies in Florida, North Carolina and northern Virginia before a late-night flight to Chicago. The schedule replicates Sunday's, when Obama also did just three events, all in battleground Ohio. But if the estimates of the crowds are anywhere close to reality, he touched tens and tens and tens of thousands of people on Sunday.
In Columbus, the estimate was 60,000. In Cleveland, where he was joined by Bruce Springsteen, it was 80,000. His last stop, a night-time rally at the University of Cincinnati football stadium, drew about 25,000 people.
McCain's crowds and those of running mate Sarah Palin, while enthusiastic, were far smaller, measured in thousands not tens of thousands. Shortly before McCain's rally in Tampa Monday morning, Adam Smith of the St. Petersburg Times posted an item on the paper's Web site noting that the crowd assembling was a fraction of the 15,000 that he said Bush drew two days before the 2004 election.
The Monday messages also had a slightly different focus. McCain is trying to rally his base, to energize a Republican Party fragmented and demoralized and aware of what the polls show. But as much as an energized base, McCain needs to convert every undecided voter left. His campaign team believes those undecided voters are more likely to tilt McCain's way in the end, but they will have to spend the last 24 hours working to make that hope a reality.
Obama is more focused on turning out voters he and his team believe are ready to vote Democratic. They have looked at the polls, many of which show Obama at or just over the 50 percent threshold in key states, and they have analyzed the early vote statistics in Florida and North Carolina and elsewhere and see a pattern that they believe gives them an advantage.
In Florida, for example, they argue that McCain will need to roll up a sizable margin among those who vote Tuesday to overcome the lead Obama has built up among the early voters. They believe the same is true in states like Colorado and Nevada, among others.
Obama and his high command may feel confident, but his message was aimed at keeping his machinery running at top speed until the polls close Tuesday night. "Who wants it more?" he asked Monday morning in Jacksonville, exhorting his followers not to let up now. "Who believes in it more?"
The Obama team's huge volunteer operation and its attention to detail continues to impress Democratic veterans of past campaigns. In Ohio, for example, Obama has 89 offices across the state, but nearly 700 staging areas for get-out-the-vote efforts on Tuesday. On Saturday, Obama volunteers knocked on 786,000 doors in Pennsylvania and almost 450,000 in Ohio.
The three states where Obama campaigns Monday could block any hope of McCain of getting to 270 electoral votes. Obama advisers are confident he will hold onto Pennsylvania, the one blue state where McCain is devoting real time and effort. McCain advisers believe the state still remains competitive, if difficult.
If Obama wins Pennsylvania, then a victory in Florida (27 electoral votes) and in either Virginia (13 votes) or North Carolina (15 votes) would effectively seal the presidency. There is no realistic way McCain can overcome losses in Florida and one of the two other states. But McCain could win Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania and still lose, if Obama were to win Virginia, Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada.
Florida is not a given, but the early vote numbers suggest McCain will have to roll up significant margins among those who vote Tuesday to offset an Obama advantage among those who have already voted. In Virginia, Obama has held onto a steady lead. North Carolina is more problematic, but early vote numbers there suggest it is within reach for the Democrats.
Out of all these state-by-state races may emerge a strikingly different electoral map than the country has seen the past two elections. In 2000 and 2004, Democrats dominated the Northeast, much of the Midwest and the Pacific Coast. Republicans held the South, other parts of the Midwest, the Plains and the Mountain West.
The Mountain West appears likely to fragment first, with Obama in position to grab Colorado, New Mexico and possibly Nevada. But Montana also is in play, and, in the Plains, North Dakota.
The South is the next region that could redraw the map. Thanks to an expected surge of African American votes, Obama could do what neither Al Gore nor John Kerry could do, which is to crack the Republicans' southern stronghold.
Finally, the Midwest could change colors. Obama holds a narrow lead in Ohio and is competitive in Indiana. Missouri, which has voted with the winner in almost every election the past century, is a tossup. Obama enjoys a big lead in the final Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll. Wisconsin and Minnesota, two states where Republicans have competed hard in the last two elections, do not look close.
McCain may well win Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, but it's possible the map will be solidly blue stretching from the East Coast across the industrial belt and through the rest of the Midwest.
After a long campaign in which change has been the driving force, all that could add up to a new map of America. But that awaits a final day of appeals by the candidates and Tuesday's tally.
Posted at 12:43 PM ET on Nov 3, 2008 |
