The Home Stretch

As the election heads into its final four days, we're looking at a pretty good position for Obama. The McCain folks talk about how the race is tightening, and Drudge and Fox News cherry-pick the best poll results for the GOP, but thinks are looking pretty good.

The overall polling shows Obama up by about six points, which is slightly tighter than the 8 point lead he had last week.





Although the race has tightened slightly, there's no indication that McCain has done anything to fundamentally alter the dynamics of the race that have been in play since the economic downturn began. Voters appear to be voting on the basis of the economy, and they prefer Obama's approach to McCain's.

In terms of field operations, I've written about how impressed I've been with the Obama offices in PA- their efforts absolutely dwarf what we put together in Ft. Lauderdale for Gore in 2000. In response, McCain is actually cutting back GOTV from the 2004 Bush operation:

The vaunted, 72-hour plan that President Bush used to mobilize voters in 2000 and 2004 has been scaled back for McCain. He has spent half as much as Obama on staffing and has opened far fewer field offices. This week, a number of veteran GOP operatives who orchestrate door-to-door efforts to get voters to the polls were told they should not expect to receive plane tickets, rental cars or hotel rooms from the campaign.



Most importantly, Obama has many more paths to victory than McCain. If you take Obama's baseline as the Kerry states plus Iowa, (which are all pretty much polling in double digits for him), he can win the following ways: win any one of VA, OH, FL or NC; or pick up any two of CO, NM, NV or MO (although getting NM and NV would put him at 269 votes, which would throw the race to the House- a win, but a messy one). So essentially, McCain must win VA, OH, FL and NC (all states where the polls show him behind or tied), and must win 3 of 4 of CO, NM, NV or MO. Even if McCain were somehow able to win PA, which is looking pretty unlikely, Obama could still win by picking up 3 or 4 of those 8 states.



Although I'm feeling (knock on wood) confident, that doesn't mean that this is a foregone conclusion. Obama's GOTV model requires volunteers to knock on millions of doors and make millions of calls in the next four days. I'm leaving for Philadelphia tomorrow morning to put my legal skills (such as they are) to work doing voter protection, and trying to sneak in some time knocking on doors. I also hope to duck out on Monday afternoon to do my favorite thing in politics- roadside visibility (e.g.- waving signs) during rush hour the day before an election.



I'll be doing my best to post on what's happening in Philly, and I have friends and colleagues who will be campaigning in Scranton, Louisiana, Ohio and Virginia- so I'll get their on-the-ground scoops as well. I'd love to post information from any of my readers during the next couple days. The word from ground-level is often better informed than what you can find in the press.

3.5 days until the polls open...