Why? ‘Cause only an arrogant, self-centered ass could have thought it was a good idea, though he and his team will never admit that:
…as voter registration is expected to wind down in the next two weeks and the impact of John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, becomes clearer, the Obama campaign is apparently scaling back its outsized electoral ambitions. It has already shifted staff, abandoning some states and putting others on notice. If it once technically played in all 50, it’s now down to 48 — you can cross Alaska and North Dakota off the list — and two other states, Montana and Georgia, are on life support. The choice of Palin not only crushed Obama’s hope of winning the Frontier State — his campaign has withdrawn most of its staff and ceased advertising there — but it also caused repercussions in North Dakota, another hockey-crazed northern state where snow-mobile racing and moose burgers apparently resonate. The Obama campaign announced this week that it is redeploying its North Dakota staff — estimated in some press reports to be more than 50 people.
“We always knew it would be an uphill battle, but because people across the country in red states and blue states are hungry for change, we built a grass-roots movement we are proud of and an infrastructure that will help candidates up and down the ballot,” says Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage of the decision to pull out. The news isn’t entirely a surprise, as Obama cut advertising in North Dakota by 50% in recent weeks. The move comes as Obama has been forced to mount more serious defenses of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin — states where the campaign spent nearly $1.5 million in television advertisements last week.
Did you catch that? Obama is being forced to defend Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin…and while its not noted, I’ll bet he’s going to have to start defending Pennsylvania and New Jersey pretty quick, with a chance that he’ll have to really pour it on in New York to ensure that State’s electoral votes go his way. Obama can’t win the White House if all he wins is Kerry’s or Gore’s States…he has to win some of Bush’s States, and perhaps a couple that Bush won twice. In the immediate aftermath of Obama’s win over Hillary it seemed he was unstoppable, had an unending supply of money and could do no wrong…but he’s being out-hustled on the campaign trail, his fundraising has dropped significantly, he’s been blindsided by the Palin pick, Congressional Democrats are distancing themselves from him, his own VP pick has proven to be a disaster (and will become a Hindenburg sized disaster once the VP debate comes up) and while he’s picked up a little bit due to the financial melt-down, he’s still proving himself unable to pull in middle class and working class voters. Obama will now have to fight – and fight very hard – in order to get to 270 electoral votes and it is a very open question as to whether or not he has the plain grit and stamina to enter that kind of fight with an experience warrior like McCain backed up by the superlative Palin.
Democrats nominated a nobody and it seems that, by so doing, the got a nobody as their nominee…and man who stands for nothing other himself, who does only what he’s told and who can’t step outside the liberal coocoon without slipping up on a regular basis. His only advantage, now, is the fact that the GOP brand (as it were) has been beaten down quite hard over the past couple years. If McCain can keep the debate off the GOP and on just about anything else, then he’ll win this thing – and, I think, if he does win it he’ll end up winning it rather handily.
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