I've noted several times in the past that Virginia is looking more and more like a swing state, with the Democrats winning the last two gubernatorial races, on pace to win a second Senate election in a row, winning control of the state Senate, and, at least according to polling, Barack Obama running within the margin of error of John McCain in the commonwealth. Apparently, the McCain campaign agrees that Virginia is now a swing state:
Aides to McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, and to Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, say they will invest heavily in winning Virginia, which could set the stage for a barrage of television ads, voter registration drives and campaign visits by the candidates."I think it is a battleground state," said Rick Davis, McCain's national campaign manager. "I know they are targeting it, and we are certainly targeting it."
The problem for McCain here is manifold. To begin, Virginia is not a cheap place to run an election campaign, with statewide advertising costing at least $1 million per week. Even considering that the Republican National Committee has more than a 9-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage over the Democratic National Committee at this juncture, money that could be put towards defending Virginia -- a state that the Democrats have only carried once in the last 60 years -- there is no assurance that the RNC will have as large of an advantage, if any, over the DNC come the fall to bail McCain out. And as a result of this, along with the fact that Obama will likely have significantly more money to spend on a general election than will McCain, it would hurt the Republicans greatly to have to spend millions and millions of dollars in Virginia.
The problem here is compounded by the fact that there is little evidence that McCain can put states in play that have not been in play in the past. While it would appear that Obama will have to spend to defend states like Pennsylvania and Michigan (though he currently holds leads in both states), the Democrats have had to spend serious dollars and time in Pennsylvania and Michigan in the past. In other words, while Obama may spend more in these states than did John Kerry or Al Gore, these are states that the Democrats traditionally focus serious resources in, so Obama would not necessarily be abnormally stretching himself to play in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Likewise, although polling indicates that Ohio and particularly Florida could be difficult for Obama to win -- they would cost him -- Florida and Ohio have been costly for many Democrats in years past. Again, Obama is not stretched particularly thin in either of these cases.
So while Obama stretches the money-deprived McCain campaign by putting states like Virginia and Colorado -- and even a couple of electoral votes in Nebraska -- into play, the same cannot be said for McCain with regards to the Obama campaign. When you combine this with a money disparity that won't be able to be made up by the RNC -- perhaps not at all if the Democratic nominee is able to turn his or her fundraising prowess to helping the DNC bring in cash quickly and in large amounts (remember, the DNC became flush with cash in the months after Kerry secured the nomination, so it's by no means out of the question that this would happen) -- you have a real potential for a headache for the McCain campaign and the Republicans.
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