State-by-State

The Obama campaign sent out an interesting memo earlier today about the Clinton campaign's argument that Clinton has done better in the large swing states Democrats need to carry in November. I think that argument from Clinton is 90 percent hot air (why should we infer general election strength from primary strength) and consequently the counter-argument includes a lot of hot air, too. One bit of solid fact the Obama campaign brings to the table, however, is that Obama states Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota were all extremely close in 2004 (i.e., margins of less than three percent). Optimism-minded Democrats would like to think of "swing states" as being the states that John Kerry narrowly lost, but it's important to hold on to the states he narrowly won as well.