Dan Balz of the Washington Post reports the Obama campaign believes it will need to hold every state won by John Kerry in ‘04 and then pick off a few states that have voted Republican in the past two elections in order to capture the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
Balz writes, “The Kerry map gives Obama 252 electoral votes. To pick up the next 18 electoral votes, Obama will target Iowa, Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. His list also includes Ohio, where he lost the primary to [Hillary] Clinton but which, in the 2006 midterms, shifted dramatically toward the Democrats.”
Not so fast — The McCain campaign believes the Arizona senator’s potential appeal to independents and some Democrats will shine the way to 270. If everything holds, Republicans and Democrats will set their sights clearly on the other’s terrain, writes Balz. “McCain and Obama offer a rare combination of nominees able to poach on the other party’s turf. Both have proven appeal to independents. McCain will target disgruntled Clinton supporters; Obama will target disaffected Republicans. Women, Latinos and, especially, white working-class voters will find themselves courted intensely by the two campaigns.
The advantage on the latter point goes to Obama, despite the fact that a new CBS poll found that 22 percent of Clinton supporters say they will vote for McCain instead of Obama. But as memories fade of the often vicious attacks on Clinton by Obama supporters — and the reality of a third Bush term under McCain sinks in — Clinton supporters will “come home” to the Democratic Party.
Can you enumerate some of those “often vicious attacks on Clinton by Obama supporters?” I’m drawing a blank.
Oops — typo. I meant “viscous.”
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 18 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com