Democracy: More Entertaining than Sitcoms, More Interactive than Video Games

As I'm sure most of you are PAINFULLY aware, the last two presidential elections have been decided by an excruciatingly narrow sliver of the electorate in just a few essential states - specifically Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Now, fortunately, Barack Obama is currently performing well in all three of these states. But early polls are obviously unreliable and the situation can change quickly. Many Democratic advisors and political consultants (I have less polite words for them, but then I'm just jealous because no one pays me millions of dollars to lose elections expensively) are fond of intoning about the need to focus carefully and overwhelmingly on these three states to guarantee a victory there, in what they consider a safe strategy.

But personally, I think this "safe and careful" strategy is about as safe as juggling chainsaws. About as careful as blindfolded shooting practice.

Winning Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida would guarantee Barack a victory - but there's NOTHING we can do to guarantee that he will win these states. Don't get me wrong, the campaign is going to compete fiercely there, with an unprecedented grassroots, GOTV and advertising presence just for starters. But if the Republicans know that your whole strategy relies on these states, all they need to do is knock us out there. A well placed (metaphorical) stilletto in the final weeks of the campaign and they can spend the next four years counting up their tax cuts for millionaires.

No, what we need is planned redundancy. We're going to compete to win in the three states I named, but also to agressively pursue any one of several very plausible alternative Electoral Vote strategies that would work just as well - either as a failsafe in case something goes wrong or, in a best case scenario, to shore up a landslide.

Let's go to the maps!

This is the current status of the Electoral College, if you believe the existing polling on a state by state basis. Which, of course - we shouldn't. But, right now we can see that Barack is winning both Pennsylvania and Ohio, while losing the state of Florida. He also picks up some good states in the West, including Colorado and New Mexico (which have been shifting our way anyway).

But let's see what happens if things go badly for us in the critical but difficult state of Ohio and the likely Democratic but swinging state of Pennsylvania:

Oops - all of a sudden it's game over, insert coin.

Now, do I think this is going to happen? No. Barack is running a smart campaign and is performing well in both of these important states. But do I want to take that risk? Heck no.

Let's assume that events conspire and for one reason or another he doesn't win PA, FL or OH - is there a plausible route to victory anyway? Absolutely! There are several. Here's my favorite, which starts with winning the large and traditionally Republican state of Virginia - where Barack performs extremely well, and adding the state of Indiana, which looks within reach:

There are dozens of routes to victory that don't require the "big 3" states, and any of them could serve as an effective safety valve to keep McCain on the run and lock in our victory.

Why not play around yourself - the Real Clear Politics create your own map page is very addictive once you get into it...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/?map=1

Feel free to post your favorite victory paths in comments.

We're Winning Pennsylvania, Ohio and FLORIDA?

Is it too good to be true? Following on from yesterday's good news from PPP, Quinipiac now has Obama ahead of McCain in all three of the most critical swing states - Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida.

Can it really be true? A sweep of all three of these states (or any two) plus holding Kerry's states from 2004 would give Barack an Electoral vote landslide - especially when you factor in his likely pickups in the formerly red states of Colorado and New Mexico.

But it's JUNE. We've hardly started yet. A lot can happen between now and November 4. It's hard to know whether a comparison with 2004 is helpful or not - some polls had John Kerry ahead of Bush some had him behind at this point.

But McCain is not Bush, and Obama is no John Kerry. With all due respect to my home state Senator, who I worked hard for in 2004 - Kerry never took fire the way that Barack has this year, and the level of enthusiasm within his supporters is extremely high. According to the polling more two thirds of those supporting Barack say they are very excited about his candidacy. By contrast only 34 percent of McCain's supporters felt the same way.

So all the early indicators are pointing our way.

It's good. Very, very good. And if you're like me you're thinking "What if it IS too good to be true? What if things swing back, what if Barack gets attacked, what if something happens etc. etc...."

But there's an easy answer to that. Don't get complacent. Make sure you are registered to vote. Make sure ALL your American friends are registered to vote. Call your family and remind them to vote. Call your Republican Great Aunt Bertha in Plano Texas who hasn't voted for a Democrat in half a century and tell her this is the year to do it. Write to your 17 year old niece and remind her that if she's 18 before election day she can be part of something really exciting. Get her registered.

Volunteer to register voters for Democrats Abroad here in the UK. Stephanie Stewart (who will be talking to us tomorrow) runs a great voter registration program and she needs all the help she can get.

Use the Fight the Smears website to, well, fight the smears by telling the truth to anyone who sends you false information about Barack.

Good polls - good start! But we're just getting started!

Obama 11 Points Up in Ohio (!)

The respected polling firm Public Policy Polling has just released the first major survey of Ohio since the end of the primary season.

The results show an AMAZING 11 (eleven!) point lead for Barack Obama over John McCain. I found it interesting that his support is equally high across both genders - 49% from women and 50% from men with 12% of women undecided compared with 10% of men.

Obviously, things can change quickly in a campaign and Barack has a lot of work to do between now and november, but this is a great start. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that if John Kerry had margins this good in Ohio, George W Bush would be a distant memory by now.

In PPP's last Ohio poll, McCain was ahead of Obama by 49% to 41%, suggesting that following the end of the primary voters are refocussing on their objections to the Republicans (and don't forget that in addition to the disasters of the Bush administration, the Republicans have severly mismanaged Ohio on a local level).

In national polling, the Washington Post released a poll today that also shows a clear Obama lead - 49% to 45% amongst registered voters.

I'm feeling pretty good about things right now.

Obama Ahead By 9 Points In Ohio

In HUGE news for Democrats everywhere, Obama leads John McCain by nearly 10 points in the latest Survey USA poll of Ohio. If we can lock down Ohio as well as Pennsylvania, where Obama was also favored in the latest Survey USA poll, and Virginia, we'll be in very good shape for the general.

The poll also tested various different Vice Presidential picks for both candidates and found that Obama would beat McCain in this state with almost any VP he would select. Only a Chuck Hagel / Mike Huckabee pairing and, bizarrely enough, an Ed Rendell / Mike Huckabee match up couldn't secure Obama the victory. What have these folks got against Ed Rendell?

Anyway, the poll has Obama ahead in every age group except the over 55s and winning a helathy 57% of those who identify as politically "moderate".

Here's what will possibly be the biggest headline of the piece - after all the hand wringing about whether he could win "hard working voters, white voters" in this crucial state, he is ahead among whites by 45 to 41.