Politico.com says John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, ceding the industrial state that’s struggled in an post-industrial world to Barack Obama.
In politics, I like to say it’s as much about what they don’t say as it is about what they do say. I’ll show you what I mean. From Politico.com:
McCain will go off TV in Michigan, stop dropping mail there and send most of his staff to more competitive states, including Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida. Wisconsin went for Kerry in 2004, Ohio and Florida for Bush.
Note what’s missing. The staff and money isn’t going to Pennsylvania, a state McCain has made an almost must-win if he’s going to change his address to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.? Are things getting dire in Pennsylvania too, where the F&M poll showed a 7-point lead for Obama and the Quinnipiac poll showed an eye-popping 15-point lead?
I doubt McCain cedes Pennsylvania they way he appears to be doing in Michigan, but if he considered Pennsylvania a must-win and felt he could pull off an upset, staff would be headed here. Watch the airwaves at WGAL, WHP, WHTM and others this week. Note if the number of McCain ads diminish.
McCain would be making a mistake to concede Pennsylvania this early. His campaign may want to consider going back to painting Obama as a not-ready-to-lead celebrity. It was that ad that began a slide in the polls toward McCain away from Obama, and here in Pennsylvania, blue collar voters and rural voters have a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately approach to picking candidates. They want someone who’s been in the trenches, someone who has a long list of accomplishments to point to, and more than Obama that person in this election is McCain. Circumstances on Wall Street have sent McCain toward an area of weakness (who best to handle the economy), and he needs to pivot and turn the conversation back to Obama’s weakness (lack of experience).
Otherwise, he’s in trouble in Pennsylvania.
Update: CNN.com is reporting that McCain is turning his focus to Pennsylvania after pulling out of Michigan. The Associated Press, though, did not mention Pennsylvania on its list of states where McCain will divert resources.
Update: Politico.com at 4:30 p.m. had this to say:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) now must win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Minnesota in order to get enough electoral votes to win the presidency, his campaign says.
Those were considered swing states in 2000 and 2004, but George W. Bush lost them both times.
“Our ability to pick off one of those three states is where our fortunes are largely held,” a McCain official said. “These are states where Barack Obama is on the defense.”
McCain has very limited ways to win, with no room for error. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) still has many routes to the White House and so can afford to campaign on a much broader playing field.
McCain aides discussed their tough new map math after Politico’s Jonathan Martin reported, and McCain aides subsequently confirmed that he is giving up on Michigan, withdrawing staff and advertising.
I wouldn’t say Obama is on the defense in Pennsylvania, but at least the McCain campaign acknowledges that this state is still very much in play. What McCain has to do in PA is put Obama on the defensive. How do you do that? Avoid Jeremiah Wright, first of all. That game’s been played. Have your surrogates run after Obama’s thin resume while McCain tries to find traction with an economic message. You don’t want McCain slammin’ Obama for lack of experience, or at least not repeating those lines too much, or you run the risk of the “desperation” label. Get the surrogates out. Throw Romney down here. Dare I say it, set Bush loose in areas like Lancaster where he’s still popular. Throw anything out there to put Obama on the defense.
Or watch this state go Democrat for the fifth presidential election in a row.
