Interesting piece up at Roll Call yesterday on Obama's likely strategy for 2012:
Democrats evaluating the 2012 map are confident President Barack Obama can win enough battleground states to earn a second term, but via a far less aggressive path than what he forged in 2008.
Party strategists, Obama aides and top Democrats see multiple routes for the president to reach the 270 Electoral College votes that he needs on Nov. 6, 2012. But some Democrats splash cold water on the big talk of outreach in all 50 states, saying it is obvious the president will focus on traditional swing territory.
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A Democratic official familiar with the still-forming re-election campaign told Roll Call that the focus will be on holding the 2008 pickups of Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina, winning over Latino voters in the West and flooding the traditional swing states of Ohio and Florida with resources. The Democrats feel good about winning New Mexico and Nevada, especially given the population growth among Hispanics.
Makes sense.
It won't be the all-out offence we saw from Obama in 2008, but, then, he can afford to play a bit of defence now, particularly if he's able to win independents and women, if there's significant turnout among blacks and younger voters (as in 2008), and if he's able to secure the growing Latino vote -- all of which appears likely given where things stand today. (I'm trying not to be delusionally optimistic about not just Obama's chances but the Democrats' generally, but who am I to doubt the apparent genius of David Plouffe?)
The "50-state strategy" is symbolic, but it is an important symbol. The thing that was revolutionary about Reagan was that he took sides; the wrongness of taking sides was abruptly and completely forgotten. Faction is the gravest disease that a body politic can contract. To abandon certain states as unwinnable ratifies faction -- and if some of those states are geographically contiguous, it invites civil war or partition. For these reasons, I certainly hope that Mr. Obama will make appearances in most (if, perhaps, not quite exactly all) of the states. The other day, someone was speculating on 2012 being a reversed reply of 1972. If Mr. Obama plays his cards right (admittedly unlikely) and if the Republicans keep up their present trajectory of hubris (essentially certain), 2012 might be a 49-state election. (If it is, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that the single red state will be Ohio.)
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