Blogs For Victory

A couple months ago, this was an impossibility…now, its just something with little chance, but that still works to McCain’s favor:

Post-convention swing state polls are tipping toward Sen. John McCain, the TV pundits are waxing about “The Palin Factor,” and Sen. Barack Obama’s California supporters are freaking out about a race Democrats were uncommonly confident about only a month ago.

Conversely, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s addition to the GOP ticket jolted Northern California Republicans out of what one described as their “Underground Railroad” existence in one of the nation’s most liberal regions. Ever since her speech to the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, party officials say volunteers have been contacting California GOP offices in numbers unseen since Ronald Reagan was on the ballot for the White House…

…Republicans aren’t giving up on California. California Republican Party chief operating officer Bill Christiansen said some private polls put the two candidates within five points of each other, and the McCain campaign is staffing 50 offices throughout the state. Four years ago, the Bush-Cheney campaign barely had a presence in California, and spent little money. “But we are fully funded this time,” Christiansen said, declining to give a figure.

The state GOP is making 125,000 voter contacts every weekend, “which blows the doors off of what we were doing four years ago,” said Christiansen. “Sarah Palin has put a shot of energy into this race.”

Last week, the McCain campaign e-mailed supporters to say it was “looking for volunteers who are willing to spend the final 10 days of the campaign helping in a nearby state.” But at the San Mateo County branch of the McCain campaign, 300 people turned out last week for its volunteer kickoff event; the turnout was goosed by Palin, organizers said. Now the office is welcoming first-timer campaigners like Phil Lehman, a 63-year-old Foster City resident.

His reason for volunteering: “Sarah.”

“There’s a realness to her, a believability,” Lehman said. “I think she’s going to eat Joe Biden’s lunch at the (vice presidential) debate.”

The initial boost to the GOP out of California is the number of volunteers who will be available to help the GOP win Colorado and Nevada – making phone calls, donating to the RNC and the State parties. This, in and of itself, is a great things – but there is more here.

Winning California would, of course, ensure a GOP victory – but, lets face some facts here, the chances of actually winning California are very slim. But that’s just it – they are slim, not non-existent; and in this there is the chance that we can force Obama to fight for California. Every dollar and minute spent in California, New Jersey, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York is a dollar and minute not spent in Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Ohio and Florida…in other words, we can move the fight to Obama’s side of the field and thus have a clearer shot at maintaining our 2004 electoral votes, and thus ensuring our win even if we don’t pick off a single blue State.

One thing to keep in mind is what happens when things get competitive. Over the past few Presidential elections, California’s participation has been akin to Texas’ – a bit more than 50%, but nothing to write home about. Why? Because over the last few election cycles the outcome in Texas and California was known months in advance. Turning to Florida, we can see that in 2004 the participation 74%, and it was 70% in 2000. Its a battle, and that gets people out to vote…as it stands right now, we can expect Obama to win California, and to have somewhere around 55% of California’s voters show up to vote. If the election in California becomes competitive, it will turn on who will show up to make the voter total go up to 60, 65 or 70%. My bet would be that Democratic voter participation is higher than GOP voter participation in California, so any increase in voter participation would tend to favor the GOP.

From what I can tell, 2008 is the year to throw out the rule books – forget about which States are solid this or solid that…there are too many variables, and the election could end up won by whichever candidate is most willing to think outside the electoral box.