Say Anything Blog

A month ago the nation was abuzz about a claim from the Obama campaign: That North Dakota, which has only voted for three Democrat presidential candidates since 1916 and not once since LBJ, was in play for Obama.  This claim was accompanied by news that Obama would be spending a lot of time on the state, even sending a full-time coordinator to staff offices in Bismarck, Minot, Grand Forks and Fargo.

The liberals in the state were ecstatic.  They had to be thinking that finally all the ignorant rubes they live with were going to do the right thing for once.

However, this is what I had to say about Obama’s plans to spend a lot of resources in North Dakota:

What will be interesting to me is not so much the opening of this office but rather how long it’s going to stay open…

...how much longer Obama will be able to justify having an office and a staffer in a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat President since 1964?

It would appear as though my prediction is coming true.  Obama is now pulling his ads from North Dakota to re-focus them on places he actually has a chance to win:

Barack Obama has pulled his TV ads from seven states that voted Republican in 2004, including the perennial swing state of Florida and two others—North Carolina and Virginia—he had been agressively targeting as part of his 50-state strategy.

The move could suggest that Obama is returning to a more traditional game plan of focusing on key battleground states to reach the 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidency.

Obama’s campaign told Fox News Network, which first reported the shift, that it is a temporary suspension during the Democratic convention. The other states are Alaska, Georgia, Montana, and North Dakota.

So why is Obama pulling his ads from North Dakota among other red states?  I think a concern for the effective deployment of resources is one facet, but the McCain campaign has another theory that’s equally compelling:

Sarah Simmons, McCain’s strategy director, cited advertising spending and polling data that she said shows that in the states where Obama has spent time and bought ads, his poll numbers dropped.

The more people get to know Obama the less they like him.  This is something I’ve pointed out again and again as Obama has focused more and more attention on North Dakota only to see his polling numbers drop.