Can Obama lose Appalachia and win the Presidency?

It's a question that's been on my mind for over a month.  Can Obama just cede all of Appalachia and still pull off a victory?  He ran so weak there in the primaries, as Jay Cost has documented with the first map above.  Appalachia was an ocean of blue--blue for Hillary Clinton.  

What if Obama loses all of Appalachia in the general election?  That is to say, every state with a portion of the region in it, within reason (i.e., excluding NY and Maryland).  This would include the swing states of Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania.  What if McCain wins all three of these, West Virginia, and the southern states he'll win anyway?

This scenario, based on the polling we have today, would give McCain 243 and Obama 219 electoral votes.  There would be 7 swing states left outstanding.  Obama could win 6 out of the 7 and still lose--if McCain won Florida.  So McCain would be pretty close to winning in this scenario; he'd only have to win Florida to clinch it.  Or he could lose Florida, but still win Indiana (Bush won in 04), Nevada (Bush won in 04), Colorado (Bush won in 04), and New Hampshire (Bush lost in 04 by a paltry 9,000 votes).  If McCain picked off Minnesota, where the race has tightened over the summer and is currently tied, and the Dems in the state might be dragged down by Al Franken's Senate candidacy, then he's in even better shape because he could then win with just Indiana and Colorado, or Indiana, New Hampshire, and Nevada.  

Hillary Clinton was a tougher candidate for electoral college reasons.  But so much can change.  I still think Obama could win in a blowout.  McCain cannot win in a blowout.  But I would not be surprised with Obama wining in a blowout.  He is a realigning candidate, which we might see in 2012 even more than now.  But now I'm getting way ahead of myself.  

The polls are meaningless (almost)

Polls at this point in time are absolutely worthless in terms of their predictive value. At this time last year, if you had believed the polling, Edwards or Hillary would have won Iowa. Or nationally, Rudy Giuliani would be the Republican nominee! See what I'm saying?

Intrade is no better, pace Michael Brendan Dougherty. Buying Obama and McCain futures this time last year would have netted you a small fortune (more so with McCain, but also with Obama).

CBS Horserace writes:

In those blue states being talked about by Republicans as possible targets, Obama is doing more than holding his own. In Pennsylvania, the RCP average has Obama up by 7 points. In Michigan, it’s a 7.2 point lead, 11.2 points In Wisconsin and 12 points in Minnesota. When it comes to those states Obama is looking to flip into the Democratic column, the race is much closer. McCain holds an average lead of just 0.7 points in Virginia and just 3.8 points in North Carolina. Obama meanwhile leads by 3.6 points in Colorado and holds a slight 0.5 lead in Indiana. And in Nevada, it’s a dead heat. Meanwhile, some of the more traditional swing states look to be tilting slightly towards the Democrat. Obama holds the lead in poll averages in places Republicans have won in recent cycle. He’s up 4.5 points in Ohio and 2.5 in Missouri. Obama is holding strong in Iowa, with an average 7.4 point lead. McCain clings to a 2.2 point average lead in must-have Florida and New Hampshire is a toss-up. In other words, Obama is looking much stronger in the states Democrats have relied on in the past two close elections while appearing to make real inroads in traditional Republican states and competing very well in big swing states like Ohio.

Stuart Rothenberg says the bellweather states will be Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada and Michigan. Obama has small leads in all of these, except in Michigan where he's up by 7+.

Obama is doing the right things right now; moving to the center during the summer when nobody's paying attention; grabbing all the headlines (for those who are) by going overseas. The trip is looking like it will be a masterstroke; Barack looks presidential, McCain is diminished by comparison.

Could Obama slip up and harm his candidacy? Of course, but that can happen with anything. He's dominating the airwaves so far and will continue to with his overseas venture. The more people just get used to the idea of Obama being their president, representing them to foreign leaders, etc., the better off he is.

He's got four months to do this, yet the drawn-out primary campaign helped immensely. Obama was not dropped on us from heaven; he had to earn it gradually over a grueling schedule of primary after primary. All these voters seeing his name on the ballot, hearing about him on the local news. And the campaigning sharpening his presidential campaigning skills. I will repeat until doomsday comes that a plethora of democracy only helps a party (and the US as a whole) and the people who only see the divisiveness have no imagination and miss the big picture entirely.

So to pose the question put by CBS Horserace (not excerpted) why isn't Obama up by more? I think the answer is that the heat has not yet been put on John McCain. McCain is benefiting from the surge's short-term success, and the fact that the economy dominates the headlines distracting people from Iraq. People are not thinking about the election. When they do the poll numbers will move around. No doubt McCain will have a lead at some point in time. But there is plenty of ways for Obama to go after McCain, and not a whole lot of ways for McCain to go after Obama, except alterization, the impact of which is/will be blunted by the fact that Obama has/has had time for people to get used to him. The media fawning all over him doesn't hurt, along with the fact that McCain has finally met his match in the media-darling category; now he's standing in the way of what the progressive media elites most desire, which is new for him.

Obama in Appalachia

The ad below has been airing in Western Pennsylvania. Let's analyze it. First, it bashes McCain and ties him to Bush. That's fine, except the two pictures they use of McCain are not bad looking. In the one where McCain is standing with Bush they're both smiling and look great. Come on! That's bad ad-making. You need a photo that makes him look old and tired. Goodness knows there's plenty of them. It's too much cognitive dissonance to be bashing him while people are staring at a becoming photo of him.

It makes one think that there's no attention to detail in this ad. So I hesitate to analyze the part where Obama is talking with a family, but what struck me when I first saw the ad on TV was that Obama really looks white. He's wearing a white shirt, with a tan background behind him, and talking to a darker Caucasian male. Who knows if it's on purpose, and these things can be over-parsed, but it is interesting if this was the intent of the ad.

In other Obama-in-Appalachia news, Jim Webb said he will not be Obama's Veep. This is a stunning development, because as I have argued here Webb is a perfect choice, and who would turn down the running-mate spot? Webb says he'd "get more done" in the Senate. Eleanor Clift swallows this explanation. There's also the angle that Democrats might lose a Senate seat as a result of Webb going on the ticket.

I am a little bit incredulous. HuffPo thinks no never means no, and that Webb will continue to be courted. I would say so. Perhaps this is all a ruse, and Webb will then come out and say "for the good of my country, I will serve," etc. I don't know.

Al Gore might be chosen Obama's veep, to which my co-blogger said, "Oh that'll win him lots of votes in Appalachia! And Tennessee too--Gore's mom, and a couple other relatives!"

Crist as veep if McCain needs Florida

Race 4 2008 has a good post up today pushing for Charlie Crist as McCain's running mate, on the thinking that it takes Florida out of play, limiting the possibilities for Obama to flip Republican states.

He writes: By taking Florida out of play, McCain limits possible red state defections to seven states: Missouri, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. The geographical concentration of these states into two distinct regions would make multi-state campaigning easier on the part of a cash-strapped Team McCain, and would force Obama to make inroads into the very sorts of voters who are most suspicious of him in order to win. In this scenario, McCain could simply spend the entirely of the fall campaign jumping back and forth between Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, knowing that whoever wins the majority of those five states probably wins the election. And we all saw how far Obama’s millions went in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania during primary season.

The swing states can be seen at the bottom of this blog, with the margins from '04. If Obama wins Pennsylvania (and at this point seems like he probably will) and Michigan, he can win without Missouri, Virginia, and Ohio only by batting 75% in Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Colorado. That's difficult, but not impossible. As Chris Bowers has posted, Obama has had a lead in Iowa in every poll since January 2007, is ahead in every Colorado poll, currently leads by over 5 points in New Mexico, and is down over 2 points in Nevada.

So Obama is likely to win today. But oh how the polls can change!