Obama campaign manager sees many paths to victory

Obama campaign manager sees many paths to victory

Play Video Video: Hillary Clinton Stumps For Obama In Miami CBS4 Miami
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama's campaign manager says the Democrat has many routes to victory in Tuesday's presidential election. Republicans predicted predicted a historic comeback for John McCain.
Campaign manager David Plouffe said Sunday that Obama has expanded the electoral map by aggressively campaigning in traditional Republican states like Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Plouffe said he did not want to wake up on Election Day with only one way to win.
He told "Fox News Sunday" that they "wanted a lot of different ways to win this election."
With McCain down in the polls, his campaign manager, Rick Davis, says Pennsylvania is the most important state to watch Tuesday. The state is leaning toward Obama in pre-election polls.


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At the very least, John McCain's final 48-hour travel schedule reflects the degree to which Obama has determined the political map on which the campaign is being fought. Of the eight states McCain will visit, only two were in the Democrat's column in 2004. And in both -- Pennsylvania and New Hampshire -- Obama enjoys a lead in every recent public poll.
In the six red states he's stopping in the final two days, McCain is either losing, tied or up within the margin.
Most striking about McCain's schedule are two stops he is making and one he's not.
First, he'll touch down in eastern Tennessee tomorrow for a rally at the Tri-Cities Airport. Is the Volunteer State suddenly in play? No, but the airport that serves the Bristol media market happens to be on the Tennessee side of the Virginia state line. The goal here is to make a big splash on the local TV news that night in southwest Virginia and in the papers there the next day. Neither McCain nor Palin have been to this region. It's a reflection of how imperative winning Virginia is for the GOP that -- two days after McCain made stops in Hampton Roads and Fairfax -- they would fly the candidate in to drive margins in a lightly-populated part of the commonwealth to compensate for Obama's advantage in northern Virginia and in the African-American-heavy cities to the east.
Later in the day, McCain will hold his first campaign rally in Indiana. No political observer thought this summer the Hoosier State would be contested, but two polls there last week show a dead heat. McCain may still pull it out on the strength of a huge margins in the southern, heavily rural swath of the state, but that he is being forced to stop the day before the election in a state that Bush won by 20 points four years ago offers the best evidence for how the degree to which the GOP has been forced on defense. And, incidentally, note where McCain is visiting -- Indianapolis. Not only is it the largest city in the state, but Obama has pulled into a tie in the state on the strength of his effort in the capital's Marion County and its surrounding suburbs, especially fast-growing Hamilton County.
Lastly, what stands out about McCain's final fly-around is a state he's not visiting -- Colorado. Yes, Palin will stop there en route home to Alaska, but that the campiagn's high command would choose to fly McCain in to New Mexico and Nevada Monday night and pass over Colorado reflects just how much it has moved to Obama.
E-mail davidsamuels7@gmail.com