To be fair to the Associated Press's Charles Babington, he may not have written the headline applied to his early analysis ("Obama wants big 2012 campaign map, GOP wants small") of how the presidential electoral map looks. But what he wrote essentially fits the headline, but didn't provide any evidence that the Republican Party is only focusing on winning back the states lost by John McCain in 2008 which George W. Bush won in 2004 to get past the 270 electoral votes needed to retake the presidency.
Here are several paragraphs from Babington's coverage (numbered tags are mine):
Republicans hope voters' fears about jobs and the economy will help them reclaim a handful of Mountain West and Southern states that were crucial to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential win. [1]
Obama's campaign appears just as determined to hold those states next year and force Republicans to spend precious resources defending places they'd like to consider safe.
Every four years, political operatives fixate on the dozen or so states that always decide close presidential elections.
This time, Obama hopes to play on as big an Electoral College map as possible, and his team insists it will compete for the first time in traditionally solid Republican states like Georgia and Arizona. Republicans, conversely, want a compact map, hoping for wins in big, always-contested states such as Florida and Ohio, which were key to George W. Bush's victories in 2000 and 2004. [1]
... Obama insiders say he could have won Arizona in 2008 if John McCain, the state's senior senator, had not been the GOP nominee. They argue that with Arizona's Hispanic population still growing, Obama's chances are better this time because that group leans toward Democrats.
Many Republicans scoff at such talk. But they have their own problems, starting with the task of taking back most or all of the nine swing-voting states that Obama won in 2008 and that Democrat John Kerry lost in 2004: Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. [2]
Notes:
- [1] --The two sentences with this tag, when considered together, would give one the impression that Ohio is a Mountain West or Southern State. Uh, not exactly.
- [2] -- Babington quoted no one who supported his contention that "Republicans ... want a compact map." He named the following states as candidates for a possible GOP reversal of fortune: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. That's 12 states. John McCain carried __ states. McCain was one electoral vote in Nebraska shy of taking 22 states. Put all of those states together, and all that remains are the three West Coast states, Minnesota (which shouldn't be a lost cause, given a strongly Republican legislature and a tax-the-rich Democratic governor), and the Northeast (ceding New Hampshire to Democrats, which seems dubious). Geez Chuck, what in the world is "compact" or "small" about that?
I'll indulge Babington's relay of Team Obama's claim to want to invade strongly red-state turf; after all, they did say it. But, as the economy continues to struggle and the administration's heavyhanded behavior becomes ever more obvious, excuse me for doubting that they really believe it.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
