I’m interested in your theories about why John McCain and Sarah Palin visited Iowa yet again this weekend.
The latest Iowa poll, from Lee Enterprises and the Quad-City Times, shows Barack Obama leading by 54 percent to 39 percent. The most recent one before that was from Rasmussen (which usually is more favorable to McCain), and it showed Obama ahead 52-44 in Iowa. In fact, Obama now leads McCain by nearly 12 points in the Iowa polling average.
So, what was Palin doing in Sioux City and Des Moines yesterday, and what was McCain doing in
Cedar Falls today?
The Des Moines Register recently noted that many Republican political strategists are baffled by McCain’s many Iowa visits (four trips in the past five weeks).
McCain appeared before an “embarrassingly small crowd” in New Mexico yesterday, the same day an Obama rally in Albuquerque drew about 45,000 people. Obama has had a solid lead in New Mexico for some time now.
What is going on with McCain’s travel schedule? Why is he going to states he doesn’t need to win instead of spending all of his time in must-win states like Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina?
Only two explanations make sense to me.
First, he may recognize that he is going to lose the presidential race. He could be holding events in places near competitive House and Senate races, to try to generate free media coverage for Republican candidates and limit the party’s losses down-ticket.
Or, his strategists may have figured out that his campaign rallies have not been helping him in the swing states. Perhaps these trips have even have backfired. If that is true, then McCain may as well spend time in states he knows he’s going to lose instead of in states that are still close, like Ohio and Florida.
What do you think?
7 Comments
Downtickets as David Frum suggested
If you lose, don’t bring everyone down with you and salvage what you can.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…
benny Sun 26 Oct 7:38 PM
Iowa has a lot of old people
I read somewhere last week that McCain is going to put a lot of effort in Iowa and Pennsylvania because they have a lot of voters over 65 and McCain thinks he has a better shot at persuading them.
noneed4thneed Sun 26 Oct 8:35 PM
That is the only thing I can think of...
Maybe it has something to do with down ticket races.
But, I’m guessing they have some internal polls showing Obama’s support among the 60+ group is weak and they can maybe score some points and hope that the <30 group doesn’t remember to vote.
audiored Sun 26 Oct 9:17 PM
PA is a different story
They have virtually no early voting. From what I’ve read, McCain is hoping for some big game-changing event in the final week, which would swing PA into his column.
In states with heavy early voting (like IA and VA), he’d have to win the election-day voters by an enormous margin to carry the state.
desmoinesdem Sun 26 Oct 9:53 PM
Did he just Guarantee a win on the 4th?
Im wondering about this, seems a little odd
secondtonone Sun 26 Oct 9:36 PM
First Premise
I think he know’s he’s done and is trying to maintain some status in the party by trying to help King and Latham. Leads me to believe that the R party is worried about losing those seats. Tight R Senate candidates like Dole, Chambliss, McConnel probably don’t benefit from McCain support when they are trying to run from Bush. So he tries with more partisan House district races.
dbrog Sun 26 Oct 10:37 PM
He's still trying to win...
…as far as I can tell.
And because we have people in this state who will look at polls, assume that Obama’s won and that they don’t need to go out in the cold, and won’t actually vote, he may be trying to fire his supporters up enough to take advantage of this.
He’s desperate, but I don’t think he’s a complete fool.
abkad Sun 26 Oct 11:25 PM