Go West, Young Party

[Matt]

Tom Schaller on the Southwestern strategy:

Because both John McCain and Barack Obama have been touring the Interior West, I’m getting a lot of calls this week about regional strategies for the Electoral College and reaching the magical 270 threshold. I’m relieved analysts are finally discovering that, among other things, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico combined have almost the same number of electors (19) as Ohio (20) and that adding those to John Kerry’s 252 total from 2004 would put Obama over the top, however narrowly.

This is really what's exciting about Barack Obama having raised a ton of money. John Kerry perceived a need to really choose between a focus on Ohio and a focus on that Southwestern trio and decided in the end that Ohio was the more promising choice. But a flush Obama campaign has money to do both and some left over to play in Virginia and the big (cheap) empty square plains states where Democrats have elected a lot of governors and senators.