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No-hio for Obama?
Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review

Interesting wrinkle in this story:

Despite what appears to be a shrinking lead, Obama aides argued that they maintain a strong position in the race.

The Obama camp is counting on holding all the states won by Kerry in 2004. The campaign also expressed confidence in its ability to flip Iowa and New Mexico, two states that went for Bush in the last election.

If Obama won all those states, they'd have 264 electoral votes. The remaining six needed for a win, said Plouffe, could come from a victory in Colorado, Indiana, Florida, Virginia, Nevada, or Nebraska.

What's missing from that list?

Ohio.

Interrresting. In 2004, Ohio was the decisive state, and it's an article of faith in the moonbat fever swamps that the Bush team "stole" the Ohio election.

By 2006, the "Coingate" scandal and various other miscues and mess-ups by Governor Bob Taft so trashed the Republican brand name that the Donks swept the statewide offices, giving us Governor Ted Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann.

Strickland, who is an absolutely vile partisan masquerading as a Methodist minister, supported Hillary, and was widely credited with getting her the win in the primary. He's got a good approval rating, mostly because he's managed not to do anything obviously stupid or corrupt so far.

Marc Dann was an early Obama supporter. He managed to do a whole lot of obviously stupid and corrupt things, and is no longer in office.

At the beginning of the year, the Donks could probably quite reasonably have looked to play off the taft scandals and carry Ohio. After Marc Dann, their own brand equity is looking a little wobbly, so maybe not so much.

Obama's state campaign chair, Eric Kearney, is an old classmate of mine. (His wife is a classmate of the Obamas.) We got along very well in school and I consider him a good friend, albiet one I haven't kept in regular contact with. He was getting a lot of statewide press not too long ago, but that seems to have faded a bit. Wonder if that's a leading indicator that the Obama camp is throttling back, or just the ebb and flow of news cycles.

Gov. Strickland is supposedly Obama's co-chair in Ohio, and did some conference calls with Eric during the summer. Strickland also rather famously said he did not want to be Obama's running mate. Wonder if his heart's really in it for Obama.
Posted by: Mike 2008-09-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=249570