Month: September 2008

SurveyUSA (9/5-7, likely voters):

Andrew Rice (D): 34

Jim Inhofe (R-inc): 56

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Oof. These numbers are very different than the ones we saw in a recent DSCC internal which showed Inhofe leading by 50-41. Granted, this poll was taken during the full bloom of Palinmania! and other GOP convention absurdities, but I really doubt that that dog and pony show was responsible for the margins that we’re seeing here.

Bonus finding: McCain is creaming Obama by a 65-32 margin in the Sooner state.

Recent polling data has shown the expected result: a narrowing of the presidential race. Everyone of these polls gathered data immediately following the Republican Convention. Yet, in scouring the blogosphere, one would think that the freakin’ world just ended.

Obama supporters are way, way too nervous. Please, do not pay attention to these polls. They are worth a SOS…however, if you must, look at them as if the cup is half full and not half empty.

Four new national popular vote polls (CBS, ABC, Diageo/Hotline and Rasmussen) all have the race essentially tied…and this during the period of McCain’s (expected) biggest post-convention bounce.

My friends, it is extremely important to remain very optimistic and continue to do the grunt work like never before in this effort. New voter registration numbers are very positive for Obama and the Democrats down ticket. Don’t blow it.

Survey USA (9/5-7, likely voters, 7/18-20 in parens):

John Yarmuth (D-inc): 53 (53)

Anne Northup (R): 45 (43)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

In a poll taken in the brightest (or darkest?) moments of the Republican convention hazy afterglow, John Yarmuth is still holding his own in his rematch against Anne Northup in this Louisville-based D+2 district. As you’ll recall, Yarmuth defeated ten-year incumbent Northup in 2006. Northup went on to do herself no favors by losing the 2007 gubernatorial primary to the scandal-soiled Ernie Fletcher.

This has shaped up to be a big money race, with both Yarmuth and Northup being prolific fundraisers. Yarmuth still maintains a sizable cash edge, although he lost the 2Q race.

SSP rates this race as Lean Dem.

Benenson Strategy Group for Charlie Brown (8/21-24, likely voters, 5/14-15 in parens):

Charlie Brown (D): 43 (42)

Tom McClintock (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 15 (18)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Some nice, steady numbers for Charlie here. McClintock still outpaces Brown in terms of name recognition (76% to 67%), but the Conservative Icon begins the campaign with slightly higher negatives (32% to Brown’s 26%), and both post similar favorable ratings in the low 40s.

Brown will be fighting against a tough GOP headwind in this R+11 district as he tries to sway those undecideds, but he’s starting off in good shape.

(Thanks to Andy D. for spotting this one.)

Moore Information (not to be confused with Ivan Moore Research) for the NRSC (registered voters, 9/2-3):

Mark Begich (D): 44

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 46

(MoE: ±4.4%)

The Tarrance Group for the NRSC (likely voters, 9/2-3):

Mark Udall (D): 40

Bob Schaffer (R): 39

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Public Opinion Research for the NRSC (likely voters, 9/2-3):

Jeanne Shaheen (D): 46

John Sununu (R-inc): 44

Ken Blevens (L): 5

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Now, I’m not gonna sound the alarm bell over a trio of NRSC polls taken during the GOP’s convo week, but the numbers are worth chewing on. We have already seen Stevens bouncing back in Alaska in another recent poll by Ivan Moore, although that survey showed Begich still leading by 49-46.

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama by 47-45 in Colorado.

I was surfing blogs this morning and stumbled upon this great ad for Senator John Boccieri(D).

We have lost major employers and suffered through “Kirk Schuring’s Gas Tax” increase while he gave himself a $9000 pay raise.

Senator Major John Boccieri(D) has served us in Iraq, Afghanastan, and 40 countries around the world. He has committed to stand up against Big Oil and help to bring down sky-rocketing gas prices. He stands with the middle class and organized labor. John Boccieri is the clear choice for Ohio’s Fighting 16th District!

From the DCCC:

John Boccieri: A Fighter. For Us. (OH-16)

A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, John Boccieri is the right candidate to represent Ohio’s 16th Congressional District in Washington.

As we move into the final 2 months in the campaign for the 5th Congressional District, the economic conditions in the 5th district will play a key role in the outcome of this race.  The facts are clear that rural north central and northwest Pennsylvania lags behind the rest of the state and nation in economic development and opportunities for our citizens.  Recent unemployment statistics released by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry shows that 2 counties in the 5th district, Cameron and Forest, have the 2 highest unemployment rates in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  Additionally, 15 of the 17 counties in the 5th district have unemployment rates over 5%, which is unacceptable.

While the unemployment news is bad enough, worse is the most recent median household income figures reported by the US Census Bureau — 2006 American Communities Survey showing that citizens in the 5th district earn on average almost $12,000 less per year than the rest of the United States.  This is an abysmal number and is one of the main reasons that the best and brightest of our young people tend to leave our communities after high school and college graduation.  Why would they stay when the cost for food, clothes, gas, utilities and other necessities are the same as the rest of the country while income levels are much less in the 5th district?

What is needed for the 5th district to combat a continuation of the high unemployment rates and lower than average income levels is a commitment to have a “Rural Renewal” in the 5th Congressional District.  When I am your congressman, I plan to work on the idea of having a rural renewal for rural north central and northwest Pennsylvania that will bring investment for necessary infrastructure improvements to all our counties and communities.  I will work as a direct partner with county commissioners and economic development agencies to determine what upgrades are needed in the various counties and then work with state and federal level officials to secure funding for important projects.  

The idea for a “Rural Renewal” will only work if voters in the 5th district realize that turning around the economic fortunes of this district starts with them on November 4th.  While the economic indicator numbers referenced above are recent numbers from June of 2008 for the unemployment figures and from 2006 for the median income levels, these are trends that have continued in the 5th district for several decades.  These trends have continued over the last 12 years under our current representative in Washington and likely will continue unless the next member of Congress from the 5th District makes a real commitment to changing these trends.  My commitment is that I will be the lead partner with our state and county level elected officials along with economic development and business leaders to bring a rural renewal to the 5th district.  

The question voters must ask themselves is this:  Do you want More of the Same high unemployment and low wages or do you want Something Better in a Rural Renewal for the 5th Congressional District?

Schedule for the Upcoming Week:

Sunday — Clinton County Picnic at 1 PM / Lycoming County Picnic at 3 PM

Monday –  American Federation Of Government Employees Council Of Prison Locals, Local 3974 — Bradford PA — 5 PM

Tuesday — Tioga County / Mansfield — Obama / Democratic HQ Opening — 5 PM

Wednesday — Surra / McCracken Labor Rally — St. Marys — 3 PM

Friday — Venango County Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Candidate Forum — Franklin PA — 7:30 AM,  Brady Township in Clearfield County VFD 50th Anniversary Dinner — 6 PM

Saturday — Warren County HQ Opening — 3 PM  Warren County Democratic Steak Cookout Picnic — 5 PM

Sunday — Mike Hanna Fundraiser — Moshannon PA — 3 PM

We look forward to seeing you out there on the campaign trail!

Mark B. McCracken

Your Candidate For Congress

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This diary is cross-posted at McCracken’s campaign blog, PA’s Blue Fifth

Mark McCracken for Congress

ActBlue page

This is the second part in my two-part series having a little bit of fun with the Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet.  This part discusses the main arguments presented by each side in every contested ballot measure and then dissects them for pure comedic value.

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/sh…

The Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet is currently posted at: http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/nov42008/military_vp.html

Please note that this is the “Military/Overseas” edition and as such is a bit rough (it is basically scanned in PDFs).

For a more serious look at these measures, see my diary from a few weeks back: The Final Oregon Ballot: Game On!

For each measure I present each side’s major arguments and list the number of arguments filed for and against.  I then analyze and make fun of these arguments.

Note: These are obviously gross exaggerations of some of these arguments so bear with me.  I focus on the main argument for each side, but multiple arguments do exist for/against most measures.

For the record, this is how I personally will vote on each measure:

54: Yes.

55: Yes.

56: Yes.

57: Yes.

58: No.

59: No.

60: No.

61: No.

62: No.

63: No.

64: No.

65: No.

Oregon’s Ballot Measures:

Measure Summary:

Measure Type:

C-Constitutional.

S-Statutory.

Legislative Referrals:

Measure 54 (C):

Summary: This corrects a bizarre flaw in the state constitution that prohibits citizens under 21 from voting in school board elections (a provision which is, of course, not in effect but should be removed anyways).

No arguments filed for or against.

Measure 55 (C):

Summary: Minor fixes to the state’s redistricting process.

Known Opposition: None.

No arguments filed for or against.

Measure 56 (S):

Summary: Partially repeals the Double Majority law requiring that 50% of registered voters cast ballots in an election for a bond measure to pass for May and November votes.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 23/7.

Yes Argument: The Double Majority Law basically means that measures that would otherwise pass fail because people don’t vote.

The Real Argument: We’re losing because people don’t vote.

No Argument: The Double Majority Law protects taxpayers from being abused by local governments who may repeatedly sneak ballot measures past them until they pass.

The Real Argument: We hate taxes and we know that the only people likely to vote in non-general elections are those that support taxes.

Measure 57 (S):

Summary: Proposes an alternative to Kevin Mannix’s (R-Of Course) property crime sentence minimum initiative.  Focuses state policy on treatment rather than prison for low level drug and property crimes.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 23/6.

Yes Argument: Kevin Mannix’s crime bill costs too much because it requires building of too many prisons and focuses on punishment and not treatment.

The Real Argument: Mannix’s measure will pass if we don’t propose this measure so that’s exactly what we’re doing.  We can’t really afford this one either but we are in less deep sh-t if we pass this one than Mannix’s.

No Argument: This measure is just a kiss-off designed by politicians to appear that they are doing something when they are in fact not to prevent crime.

The Real Argument: We want everyone who has ever committed any real crime at all locked away forever.  Rehabilitation, forget it.  If Jean Villejean of Les Miserables fame stole bread under this measure, he’d get hard time and we don’t want any excuses about why he did it.

Citizen Constitutional and Statutory Measures:

Measure 58 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Bill Sizemore.

Summary: This measure would require English immersion rather than ESL for children for whom English is not their primary language.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 8/29.

Yes Argument: Children of immigrants learn English best and integrate best into our society if they have English immersion, not ESL.

The Real Argument: Learn English you Mex-I-Cans!  This is A-Mer-ika and you dang well better speak it rather than that there Espan-Yol….

No Argument: It costs too much and is not effective to force English immersion on new immigrants and their children.

The Real Argument: The other side is a bunch of racist f-ers and we shouldn’t listen to them.

Measure 59 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Bill Sizemore

Summary: This is at least the third time that Sizemore and his gang have proposed this measure, which makes federal income taxes fully deductible on state returns.  This measure largely benefits high wage earners and would blow a huge hole in the state’s budget.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 6/28.

Yes Argument: Allowing a full federal deduction saves taxpayers money and thus stimulates the economy.

The Real Argument: Allowing a full federal deduction saves rich people money (the current deduction covers most middle class folks).

No Argument: This deduction is unnecessary and would blow a huge hole in the state budget.

The Real Argument: This deduction would cost a whole lot of state jobs, including teachers. cops and firefighters.  You like teachers, cops and firefighters don’t you?

Measure 60 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Bill Sizemore

Summary: This would require “merit-pay” for teachers in public schools.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 6/26.

Yes Argument: We should focus on retaining the best teachers, not simply those that have been there the longest.

The Real Argument: We want another excuse to cut teachers we don’t like.

No Argument: Merit pay doesn’t work because it is difficult to measure student performance.

The Real Argument: We’re used to the seniority system and we want to keep it.

Measure 61 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Kevin Mannix

Summary: This is Kevin Mannix’s draconian sentencing measure for property and low-level drug crimes.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 7/19.

Yes Argument: Those committing low level drug and property crimes get off too easy nowadays.

The Real Argument: Measure 11 (Mannix’s Mandatory Minimum Measure) worked so well at increasing the need for prisons, why not go for broke?

No Argument: This law is overly punitive, most of these folks need treatment, not jail.

The Real Argument: We can’t afford this measure, it’s as simple as that.

Measure 62 (C):

Chief Sponsor: Kevin Mannix.

Summary: Dedicates 15% of Oregon Lottery proceeds to crime fighting/prevention efforts.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 6/10.

Yes Argument: If we want real crime prevention, we need a stable funding source like the lottery.

The Real Argument: This also takes away money from those pesky public schools to boot, we don’t like public schools that much.

No Argument: This would decrease funding for other programs, parks and schools mainly, funded by the lottery.

The Real Argument: Gambling has been funding us for a long time and we can’t afford to lose any money from people who are foolish enough to play the lottery.

Measure 63 (S):

Chief Sponsor; Bill Sizemore

Summary: This measure would allow minor building changes without a permit.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 6/24.

Yes Argument: Right now, in order to make minor building changes to your home or business, you need to get a pesky permit.  This should not be so.

The Real Argument: This is a backhanded way of starving local governments that depend on permit revenue and thus decreasing the size of government.  Oh and we hate pesky permitting requirements for the most part too.

No Argument: Permit requirements are there for our own good and safety.

The Real Argument: Local governments rely so heavily on permit revenues that we can’t afford to lose them.

Measure 64 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Bill Sizemore

Summary: Sizemore brings back an old and twice-failed idea to ban public-employee unions from using dues for political purposes.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 7/30.

Yes Argument: Since public employee unions work for the public, they should not be involved in any way in politics.

The Real Argument: Public employee unions are the single biggest source of funding for the Oregon D’s and this way we can kill the Democrats $ source.

No Argument: People can already opt out of their dues being spent on political campaigns.  This is just a backhanded way to destroy our influence.

The Real Argument: We lose a lot of our power if this measure passes.

Measure 65 (S):

Chief Sponsor: Former SOS Phil Keisling (D)

Summary: Creates a Top-Two Open Primary in which all parties run their candidates on the same ballot and the top two, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.

Arguments Filed For/Against: 20/15

Yes Argument: The top two primary makes sense because it allows the top two candidates regardless of party affiliation to advance to the general election, allowing for choice and encouraging turnout in the primary.

The Real Argument: We don’t like the control parties have our the primaries.

No Argument: The top two primary doesn’t increase turnout and actually decreases the chance a third-party candidate will make it to the general election.  If you want to vote in a primary, register as a member of a political party.

The Real Argument: The Republican and Democratic parties don’t want to lose control of their nominating processes.

Let me know what you think.

It’s Sunday night, which means that it’s time for SSP round up all of the House race independent expenditures filed in the last seven days. Here’s the latest damage:

Most notably, the DCCC has entered AL-05, AZ-01, AZ-05, and PA-03 for the first time this year. It’s nice to see that Dave Schweikert is getting the warm general election welcome of a prompt bloody nose from the DCCC, and the committee’s targeting of the odious Phil English means that we can expect a hotly-contested race in PA-03.

The NRCC is still holding its fire, but Tom Cole has dipped into his kitty to fund a poll in OH-02. Will its findings ever see the light of day?

In case you missed it, last week’s round-up is available here.

For more specific details on these expenditures, please check out SSP’s daily Independent Expenditure Tracker.

Note From Diarist:  This diary is primarily about the Presidential campaign.  I wrote it for Daily Kos but didn’t feel it got the exposure I was hoping for.  It’s very much inside baseball politics so I thought it might have some fans around here, but it is about the Presidential campaign which I know is no longer the focus of the website.  If the moderator wishes to delete it, I’ll understand.

Anybody following the horse race at all has a pretty good idea where the key battlegrounds are expected to be. My personal opinion is that the three markets that are most likely to determine the 2008 election winner are, in this order, Denver (including Boulder and Fort Collins), Detroit, and Northern Virginia. Beyond those three, there are at least a dozen markets in key battleground states that will be sucking up the vast majority of campaign resources in the next 50-some days until the election. That’s the way the game is played and always will be for as long as the Electoral College is a reality. My thought process this morning was dedicated to isolating some geographic hotspots that are perhaps under-the-radar of conventional wisdom yet could nonetheless be very productive investments of time and resources for the Obama campaign. The top-10 I came up with are listed below in descending order.

10. Flagstaff, Arizona–Because it’s John McCain’s home state, nobody expects Arizona to be a swing state in 2008. It probably won’t be, but the most recent poll released from the state showed McCain leading by only six in Arizona, a smaller lead than he held in the expected battleground state of Nevada. The Obama campaign needs to do some internal polling in Arizona and see if their findings reflect the recent polling of a single-digit McCain lead. If it is, I think it would be entirely worthwhile to pour some campaign dollars in the less-expensive media market of Flagstaff, which is already favorable Democratic terrain, and also to set up a campaign stop there. It would be very embarrassing for the McCain campaign if Obama went to the university town of Flagstaff and filled the streets with tens of thousands of screaming fans in McCain’s backyard. Obviously this is not something we’re likely to see in the closing weeks of the campaign, but for headfake value alone, it’s something worth doing in September.

9. Aberdeen, South Dakota–I’ve seen only one poll coming out of South Dakota, and it showed McCain with a scant four-point lead. I don’t expect Obama to win there, but I’m puzzled why the prospect of a competitive South Dakota is not even being discussed even when the polls are similar to those of North Dakota, which is a battleground. Aberdeen is a worthwhile target for a September campaign stop and television ads for a number of reasons. This is the Democratic part of South Dakota. Tim Johnson and Stephanie Herseth pulled out statewide victories in 2002 and 2004 by running up the score in the counties in and around Aberdeen. Given that the Democrats have adopted a much more friendly platform to controversial-everywhere-but-the-Corn-Belt biofuels than Republicans in 2008, Obama could pick off alot of GOP-leaning farmers in eastern South Dakota who don’t trust McCain’s commitment to agriculture. Beyond that, Obama could do a rally with hometown boy Tom Daschle and really make some connections to voters who were out of reach for Gore and Kerry. I’m not certain about particulars of the Aberdeen media market, but I suspect it would be one of the cheapest in the country for advertising, and cuts into portions of North Dakota making it even more useful.

8. Wheeling, West Virginia–I have a good friend who lives deep into the hollers of Logan County, WV, and still insists from her interactions that she believes Obama will win West Virginia. I suspect that puts her in a minority small enough to count on one hand, but I still think some outreach effort into West Virginia would be valuable, particularly in the Wheeling area. Obama essentially ceded West Virginia to Hillary in the primary, making only one campaign stop in Charleston on the eve of the primary. Voters there don’t know him, but I suspect that if more do, the margin for McCain in the state could potentially be far less lopsided than if he doesn’t set foot there. More importantly though, I think Wheeling is important for the same reason it was important for Kerry four years ago. The market cuts into Ohio and Pennsylvania, specifically the very blue-collar regions of Ohio and Pennsylvania where Obama has the most work to do to win over skeptics. I suspect campaigning in this area is something of a defensive move, meaning his best hope is probably to cut losses rather than win over Bush voters, but in the context of controlling losses within statewide races in OH and PA, the old adage that the best offense is a good defense certainly seems to apply.

7. Council Bluffs, Iowa–Each new round of poll numbers indicate that Iowa appears less likely to ultimately be a battleground state, with Obama managing double-digit leads in the state. Again, I surmise that the untold story accounting for Obama’s strong performance throughout the Corn Belt (even Indiana!) is ethanol, specifically McCain’s previous hard-line opposition to it. The reason Council Bluffs is a secret weapon is twofold. It’s location in the heavily Republican southwest side of Iowa means the Obama campaign is on offense there, competing for traditionally Republican votes in western Iowa, but also competing for votes in Omaha, Nebraska, just across the Missouri River from Council Bluffs. We don’t hear much anymore about the prospect of Obama winning one (or even two) of the electoral votes in eastern Nebraska, and it remains a longshot. Nonetheless, raising Obama’s presence in western Iowa will have spillover effect in Omaha and the corn farmers surrounding it in Nebraska, leaving the prospect of robbing McCain of a Nebraska electoral vote on the table while simultaneously running up the score in Iowa.

6. Durango, Colorado–Chances are, the suburban doughnut surrounding Denver will decide who wins Colorado’s nine electoral votes, but if the race is as close there as most suspect it will end up being, smaller Colorado markets loom large. The fast-changing demography of Colorado was abundantly clear in the 2004 election, and perhaps no place was the change more obvious than Durango, formerly a Republican stronghold in Colorado’s southwest corner, where population growth is apparently fronted by left-leaning young people drawn to the area’s ski culture. I believe there were only five counties in America that Bill Clinton never won in 1992 or 1996, but where John Kerry won in 2004. La Plata County, Colorado, home of Durango, was one of them. If we assume that the trendlines that had clearly transformed Durango in 2004 have continued, Obama should be able to grow upon Kerry’s margin rather significantly in the area in 2008. The fact that neighboring battleground state New Mexico is a few miles south of Durango is an an additional bullet point for its utility.

5. South Bend, Indiana–Congressman Joe Donnelly showed us the potential northern Indiana holds for Democrats if we simply try there. The lesson appears to be learned as Indiana is deemed a battleground state in 2008. South Bend strikes me as the most consequential market in Indiana. Notre Dame University gives Obama a youthful base of operation while simultaneously providing Obama an outreach to Catholic voters, a demographic long cited as one of his most difficult to reach. The South Bend market also reaches into southwestern Michigan, and despite fairly encouraging polls of late, I think Obama will ultimately need all the help in can get in Michigan. Probably outside of the South Bend market but still worthy of mention is another Indiana town in Joe Donnelly’s Congressional district, Kokomo. This is a blue-collar factory town that Democrats should be winning, but rarely do. Voters in Kokomo may be some of the most likely to swing if the Obama campaign reaches out to them in a serious way.

4. Elko, Nevada–In 2004, it seemed like John Kerry was spending more time in Republican-leaning Reno than in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas. I didn’t really understand it at the time, until I saw the election returns and noticed Kerry had significantly cut into the GOP’s advantage in Reno and surrounding areas. The reason Kerry lost Nevada was that he got absolutely destroyed in rural Nevada. Obama, by contrast, beat Hillary in most rural Nevada counties, meaning there’s at least a basis for thinking he could overperform Kerry in places like Elko. Campaigning and advertising in Elko would really be taking Kerry’s 2004 effort to go on offense in Reno to the next level. Considering Kerry got less than 20% of the vote in Nevada’s fourth most populous county, worse than both Mondale and Dukakis did back in the day, there’s easily room for improvement in the area, and even a little improvement upstate Nevada could be the difference in the state.

3. Cincinnati, Ohio–Now considering Cincinnati is the third-largest media market in what is considered perhaps the most critical battleground state, calling for an Obama campaign presence there is on the surface a no-brainer, but most importantly, I see metropolitan Cincinnati as the region of Ohio where Obama is best-positioned to make gains over John Kerry. Kerry narrowly lost Hamilton County (home of the city of Cincinnati and the core of its suburbs), but with a high African-American turnout in 2008, I strongly expect the county to turn blue. Just as important are the three crimson red exurban counties surrounding Cincinnati, which accounted for Bush’s entire margin of victory in Ohio in 2004. In every election since 2004, the needle has moved dramatically against Republicans in all of these counties (Butler, Clermont, and Warren), with Jean Schmidt, Ken Blackwell, and Mike DeWine, all badly underperforming traditional GOP margins in the area. If Obama can keep this trendline going and trim his losses by a few percentage points in suburban Cincinnati, it will go a long way towards offsetting his likely underperformance in the rural portions of Ohio. And to whatever extent the Cincinnati market is an outreach into Indiana is also a feather in our cap.

2. Michigan’s Upper Peninsula–With the racial polarization of metropolitan Detroit, enflamed by the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal, and Obama’s call for tougher CAFE standards fiercely opposed by Detroit automakers, the McCain campaign has some serious ammunition against Obama to take into Michigan. I fully expect Obama will underperform Gore and Kerry in metropolitan Detroit. With that in mind, the thought process should become where we can pick up additional votes in Michigan to offset the possible hemorrhaging in the population centers. To that end, it seems like a no-brainer for Obama to take his campaign up north…way up north. The blue-collar Upper Peninsula of Michigan is sparsely populated, but its demographics seem to align with other Midwestern areas that are Obama-friendly. More to the point, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan looks like Wisconsin, thinks like Wisconsin, and votes like Wisconsin. When you look at Obama’s healthy standing in Wisconsin polls compared to Kerry four years ago or Gore’s eight years ago, my thinking is that every Obama campaign rally that begins in Green Bay should make the quick drive to Marquette, Michigan, from there.

1. Fargo-Moorhead (North Dakota/Minnesota)–I suspect there is no other media market in the country where the needle will move more significantly in Obama’s favor compared to 2000 and 2004 than Fargo-Moorhead. To the extent that North Dakota has already been identified as a battleground state, Obama’s campaign already has a presence in the area, but may nonetheless not appreciate just how many things are working to their candidate’s favor here. First of all, the cities of Fargo and Moorhead are islands of youth in a region otherwise dominated by gray hair. That cuts to Obama’s advantage demographically. Furthermore, in addition to Obama’s more farmer-friendly stand on biofuels, the Democrats have an additional ace-in-the-hole here because the region is one of the nation’s top sugar-growing areas. The sugar industry has enjoyed its relative “cartel” status and has become decidedly protectionist since the passage of CAFTA in 2005, a vote which helped every Democrat on the ticket in Minnesota in 2006 score landslide margins in the Red River Valley. Particularly on the Minnesota side, this area is historically Democratic, even though both Gore and Kerry were destroyed here. This advantage on both sides of the river extends further to the Grand Forks area, a region of North Dakota where every Democrat needs to win big in a competitive statewide race. It’s expected that Minnesota is leaning heavily Obama, but don’t underestimate the pseudo-maverick image of John McCain fooling alot of moderate suburbanites in Minneapolis-St. Paul. That raises the stakes for Obama’s need to win in places like the Red River Valley, which early indications suggest he is poised to do.