In a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Y-Q9ZY5Ao) Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina explains five different ways to get to 270 electoral votes. But are there mistakes in these plans? by Modern Socialist
(liberal)
Friday, December 30, 2011
In a new video on youtube uploaded by BarackObamadotcom relased 12-29-11, Barack Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina eplains 5 possible ways our president Barack Obama can get to 270 electoral votes; the amount needed to win the election (www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7Y-Q9ZY5Ao). He starts off with the baseline that all states won by John Kerry, Obama can win. Messina said that "we believe that that those states are all states that we can carry." At that point only seconds into the video I already didn't agree. Obama won't be able to carry all the states that Kerry carried. For example Pennsylvania may be much harder. They won't win it if they're not doing any work there. They might lose a few states unexpectedly by ignoring them for the sole reason that Kerry was able to win them.
The first path is the West Path. This consists of winning Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa. "Colorado and Nevada are states that the democrats haven't won for a very longtime but the president carried last time" stated Messina. which is why this plan seems worth trying. New Mexico should be easy. And except for the fact that Iowa isn't in the west and the Kerry baseline, this can be a winning route.
The second path is the Florida Path. As Messina said they can't just win the so-called base states and Florida.
The Third path is the South Path. I thought the democrats won't ever win the south. But it's not really the south. Messina should have called it the Mideast instead of the "New South." In the "New South" there's North Carolina and Virginia. North Carolina is a definite place to try and win but Virginia is very competitive. Get more voters registered and it might be plausible. But it's inferior to the west path even if it gets two more electoral votes for our president.
The Fourth path is the Midwest Path. For this they'd have to pick up Ohio and Iowa. This path should be easier for Obama than any other. He picked up both states in 2008. But in 2010 most seats in both of those two states went republican. The Midwest path is good and is likely to get an Obama victory. It just might not be as easy as it seems. Messina said "we've probably done more work, on the ground, in Ohio than any other state in 2011." Which makes it more likely that the Midwest Path will work.
The fifth and final path is the Expansion Path. This is to win Arizona. They took it out of the question in 2008 because it was McCain's home state. But Obama wants to win it in 2012. The Expansion Path isn't just the neglected baseline and Arizona. New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia were also colored in blue but not mentioned by Messina. This seemed to make the Expansion Path to big for one project.
The Obama Administration needs lots of work to win the election; including in the baseline states. All they did for these paths is all the 2004 and 2008 democrat states they kept blue and 2004 and 2008 republican states they kept red. They just changed the states that were blue in one race and red in another and based their plans on those.
I want to see your predictions for the next election. Go to the website, follow the instructions to make a prediction. Then press Select my URL and copy, paste it in the comments section. Click Here to make a prediction.
Click Here for Jim Messina's video about Obama's five plans to 270 electoral votes
The views expressed
in this article are those of Modern Socialist only and
do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates.
Modern Socialist is solely responsible for the contents
of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated
with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
