McCain Might Give Up On Colorado...

dudalb

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There are reports that McCain is thinking about withdrawing resources from Colorado if there is a chance the GOP can win without it.
Someone should cue the Queen Classic "Another One Bites The Dust" about now.
 
There are reports that McCain is thinking about withdrawing resources from Colorado if there is a chance the GOP can win without it.
Someone should cue the Queen Classic "Another One Bites The Dust" about now.
Please please let it be true. That has nothing to do with who I want to win, I just want all the damn ads to go away.

Now if the senate candidates would both withdraw :)
 
Even if McCain withdrew, Obama has so much money he can keep the TV ads coming in Colorado just to make sure......
 
Maybe he thinks he can win without spending any money. Maybe he thinks the fix is in for him.

I notice that Obama has spent only a million or so on Washington, and I think we will hand McCain his head next month.

Gramps is going broke fast and needs to play catch-up in what he thought were cakewalk races. Spend where you need it is his only remaining survival tactic.
 
Even if McCain withdrew, Obama has so much money he can keep the TV ads coming in Colorado just to make sure......
True but at least about half his ads are about himself and not McCain. While McCain is finally running one positive ad, the ratio is still about 9-1 negative.

I can live with positive ads (even McCain's) it's the negative ones that driver me crazy, especially when they lie about the opponent.
 
Hmm so, let's lay this out.

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270 electoral college votes needed to win, McCain has 137 solid, 18 leaning electoral votes as of now. Let's just say he gets all those for 155. Obama has 259 safe votes, 27 leaning votes. It doesn't take a PhD to see that to win McCain has to not only win all the battleground states, but also cut into leaning Obama states, denying Obama the 11 votes needed to go over the top (270). That basically means he has to win Virginia and New Mexico on top of all the gray battleground states, unless they are thinking about jumping back into New Hampshire, Wisconsin or Minnesota. I'm not seeing the strategy here unless McCain has decided he has a better chance in those states than Colorado.
 
What is weirdest here is ND and MT. How the heck can those be at risk for a Repub candidate unless the wheels are coming totally off the wagon?

Not so strange. Montana's governor and both senators are Democrat. ND's governor is Republican, but both senators there are Dems too.
 
I closed the page i got the news but McCain is also pulling out of New Mexico and Iowa also. He should have pulled out of Iowa 6 weeks ago instead of wasting several days and a lot of money on a state he never had a chance in. He should have left NM 2 to 3 weeks ago and moved the staff and money to CO and NV than. For McCain to win he has to run the table on holding the remaining bush states and flip Penn.

Using back of the envelope calculation giving him a 50/50 odds of winning every bush state that he is behind and in Penn and a 75/25 for every bush state he is up by less than 3 he has about a 1 in 200 chance of pulling it off. Being super beneficial to McCain and giving him a 50/50 in Penn, 75 percent in every Bush state he trails and 90 percent in the ones he leads by less than 3 he still has only about a 8 percent chance of pulling it off.
 
I seriously question poll results that show less than a 5% margin. Between the Bradley effect, electoral fraud and the undercounting of Elephants, I think the race is much, much closer than projections of the polls indicate. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
 
I seriously question poll results that show less than a 5% margin. Between the Bradley effect, electoral fraud and the undercounting of Elephants, I think the race is much, much closer than projections of the polls indicate. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I somehow recall the Bush-Kerry election coming up with similar poll results as the elections approached... and it turned out to be something like 50-48 in popular votes (although electoral college is needed to actually win)...
 
Just wanted to add, playing around withe the electoral map that McCain has no conceded 238 EV to Obama while Obama has conceded just 137 to McCain (and that is assuming that McCain is still in MN). If Obama just holds PA and MN and looses NH he will tie and win in Congress. Obama can loose PA, OH, and FL and still has a winning hand with VA, NH and NV or WV. HE could loose the big 3 and VA and have a MO, NH, NV plus MT or ND. Very stupid strategy on McCain's part giving up on CO.
 
I seriously question poll results that show less than a 5% margin. Between the Bradley effect, electoral fraud and the undercounting of Elephants, I think the race is much, much closer than projections of the polls indicate. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I think it's also very possible Obama is leading by more than the polls show. It's possible there is a sort of reverse Bradley effect at work. There is an undeniably large enthusiasm gap in this election, if you look at the size of the crowds Obama draws, versus those of McCain/Palin. It's possible people are secretly planning to vote for Obama, while acting like they'll be voting for McCain.

Don't be too surprised if Obama wins by a devastating landslide, even with attempts at voter fraud.
 
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Another thing I don't hear people addressing much: If we're going to throw in the Bradley Effect (which is now believed to be overstated), then we need to look at Palin, and the fact that she's a minority too (female). As such, there could be men who will say they'll vote for McCain w/Palin on the ticket, but secretly tell themselves "There's no way I'm voting for some under-experienced female who could easily become president".
 
I think it's also very possible Obama is leading by more than the polls show. It's possible there is a sort of reverse Bradley effect at work. There is an undeniably large enthusiasm gap in this election, if you look at the size of the crowds Obama draws, versus those of McCain/Palin. It's possible people are secretly planning to vote for Obama, while acting like they'll be voting for McCain.
Actually, I agree with this POV. It could go either way. Obama might just crush McCain.

That said, I'll only be comfortable on Nov. 5th if Obama wins big enough that the margin of victory is beyond electoral dispute. Baring that, it's nail-biting time.
 
North Carolina looks a little more likely to shift toward Obama with the defection of General Powell. Military voters make a difference there.
 
A little about McCain's electoral strategy ...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/20/mccain-camp-looking-for-way-to-win-without-colorado/

While Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado are still officially listed as McCain target states, two top strategists and advisers tell CNN that the situation in those states looks increasingly bleak. Iowa and New Mexico always have been viewed as difficult races, but the similar assessment of Colorado reflects a dramatic shift for a campaign that had long counted on the state.

"Gone," was the word one top McCain insider used to describe those three states.

This source said while the polls in Colorado remain close, he and most others in the operation were of the opinion that the Obama campaign and its allies have a far superior ground/turnout operation and "most of us have a hard time counting on Colorado."

The McCain strategy depends on holding a handful of Bush '04 states that are now rated tossups by CNN: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri and Nevada. It also depends on keeping Virginia, which CNN now considers leaning Democratic, in the GOP column.

But even if McCain won all six of those states, in addition to those in which he is already favored, he would still be shy of the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the presidency.

Which is where Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes come into play. Most polls show McCain trailing by 10 points or more in the state, but one top adviser told CNN on Monday, "The election hinges on Pennsylvania. We'll win Virginia and Nevada in the end, but lose without Pennsylvania."


They're down to hoping to pull out a win in Pennsylvania ... where he's been trailing by double digits for quite a while.

McCain has lost Iowa and New Mexico, if not Colorado. All Bush States. Because of that, he has to win a sizable Kerry State. As of now, no Kerry State of any size is within reasonable reach. I'm predicting that McCain will throw the kitchen sink and septic tank into Pennsylvania over the next two weeks though.
 
Everyone claiming that McCain is giving up on Colorado cites (only) this story by CNN's John King, based on anonymous sources in the McCain camp. Neither the article nor the insiders say any such thing:

Despite the less than optimistic political assessment of Colorado, McCain at the moment continues to buy television advertising in the state: roughly $700,000 a week the past two weeks with similar spending levels ordered for the week ahead.

...

(One of the McCain sources said that ad spending in Colorado could be increased — even doubled — to somewhere in the ballpark of $1.5 million. "We're not giving up on Colorado," one of the sources said. "But we need to have a math scenario that doesn't count on it.”)

...

What the sources emphasized was that the campaign needed an alternative to 270 that did not count on Iowa, Nevada and Colorado. They did not say the campaign was ready to pull resources.

...

The sources' sober assessment of Colorado and even more downbeat view of McCains prospects in Nevada come even as GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin campaigns Monday and Tuesday in Colorado and Nevada. From there, Palin moves on to Ohio.

The real gist of their statements seems to be that they can't have an electoral strategy that relies on winning Colorado, not that they're giving up on it.
 

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