From Politico:

John McCain is pulling out of Michigan, according to two Republicans, a stunning move a month away from Election Day that indicates the difficulty Republicans are having in finding blue states to put in play.

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.

McCain’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

This is a huge deal, to say the least.  This is basically an acknowledgment from the McCain campaign that they are in trouble.  In fact, they are in serious trouble.  Barack Obama’s favorables are as high as they have ever been.  He’s sustained a 5-6 point lead in the national polls, and the electoral map looks more favorable than ever.  Obama is opening up wider leads in Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and New Hampshire, which has pushed is fivethirtyeight win percentage up to 85%.  But, I think there’s an even better way to look at this.  If you add up all of Obama’s “Safe” and “Likely” states from fivethirtyeight, he’s already at 269.  So basically, if we can play some good defense, and snatch up a single leaner state or toss-up state, we win.  Looking at it the other way, John McCain has to win all of the toss-ups, and all of Obama’s leaner states, while simultaneously holding on to his leaner and likely states.  Here’s how the states look from an Obama perspective:

Now jive this with kos’s ad spending numbers:

(In thousands)

State   McCain  RNC   Obama   DNC
CO        464     0     979     1
FL        436     4   3,100    18
IA        151     0     157     0
IN          0    41     415     1
ME          0     0       2     0
MI        292    63     754     1
MN        202     0      66     0
MO        104     0     356     6
MT          0     0      47     0
NC         47     0     688     3
NH         96     0     258     0
NM        147     0     254     1
NV        299     0     737     3
OH        485   103   1,217     0
PA        942    69   1,882    14
SC          0     0      67     0
VA         93    25   1,215     5
WI        295    26     666     1
WV         23    11      43     0

The Obama campaign has been one of the best run campaigns in the modern era.  You have to hand it to them, whenever we’ve bitched and moaned about their strategy, they’ve redeemed themselves down the road.  Remember all of those Britney ads in the late summer?  Yeah.  Me neither.  This is the time when it counts the most, and it’s exactly the time that Obama’s spending is ramping up.  Remember when Florida looked like it was out of reach, and everyone was wondering why we were spending so much money there?  It’s a good thing he did, because McCain’s biggest firewall is now slipping through his fingers.  Time and time again they’ve proved to be the cleverest kid on the block.

Just for comparison, here’s what the national numbers looked like in recent cycles:

We’re booming exactly when Kerry/Gore were freefalling.

We’re in good hands folks, but they still need your help.

Tags: Barack Obama, election, electoral college, politics, polls

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