How do you get to 270?

The challenge for Barack Obama this election is very simple: How do you take away enough "red" states from the Republicans (and hold onto the same "blue" states) to get 270 electoral votes and win the election. It's not likely to end up with that different a result from the last two elections.

The polling this year has made this kind of planning even more difficult. You have to realize that there are two kind of polls these days. You have the media made polls that are usually a combination of a newspaper and a TV network: NBC/WSJ, CNN/USA Today, etc. Those are usually made to have something to write about. The media companies will order a poll of a certain size (bigger is more expensive) and there is not a lot of pressure for accuracy until the weeks previous to the election.

You also have the advertisement poll: polling organizations run polls so that later they can brag that they "got it right...or 'righter' than everyone else." This is the kind reported in the press as "a new Gallup poll says", etc. Polling organizations like Survey USA, Zogby international, Rasmussen Reports, etc. constantly poll. "National" polls are worthless. Why?

It's important that you understand this fact: There is NO SUCH THING AS A NATIONAL ELECTION IN THE USA. What we will have this fall are regional and state elections. What about the presidential election? It's a 51 state election. 51? Yes, the Electoral College is the method we use to choose our presidents. And the District of Columbia, not a state, gets 3 electoral votes as designated in the Twenty-Third Amendment to the US Constitution.

So...the ONLY polls that mean ANYTHING are state polls. Here is where the SECOND type of polling comes into play. Internal polls. One of the activities that costs the MOST amount of money in a presidential campaign is internal polling. These are polls that are done by the campaigns themselves. They are highly accurate with the kind of data that can be gathered using modern methodology. They are also highly confidential. Campaigns use them to make the important decisions regarding what issues to pound home...and which ones to avoid or remain silent on.

Notice that McCain pounds home national security, gasoline issues, taxes, and judges. Obama began loudly proclaiming his opposition to Iraq but has now backed off that and addressed Iran much more lately. McCain can't be heard saying much of anything about abortion. Obama gave a "sermon" in a church on Father's Day about black males becoming more responsible about parenting. All of these talks are not made out of chance, but in response to focus groups and polling data in the states that are key to each candidate. It's also targeted at groups that are most needed by the candidate. Obama's message about black male responsibility will play well with the blue-collar vote he so badly needs. McCain's comments on judges, security, oil, and taxes may bring the conservative Republicans, who he has real problems with, to grudgingly go to the polls in November and hold their noses and pull the lever for him.

Most importantly, you can tell what the internal polling data is telling the candidates by watching WHERE THEY GO TO CAMPAIGN. Obama,for instance, has spent a LOT of time in the usually blue state of Michigan. McCain is also plying the midwest. The dirty little secret is that Obama knows he is in big trouble in the Motor City state. One of the interesting little stories recently has been the resolution of the Michigan delegation to the convention. Obama has played up the fact that he "obeyed the rules" and even took his name off the ballot for the Michigan Primary in the wake of the DNC's disciplinary action against the Democratic party there for it's early primary (a violation of the Democratic National Committee's edict on primary timing).

The fact is that he was relieved at the ruling because he was going to lose badly there. He took his name off the ballot because it allowed him to let Hillary win there without it being a "loss" for him. When he lost Florida badly, it proved the wisdom of that strategy. It also explains the howls from the Hillary camp during the rules committee fight at the end of May over the DNC decision to allocate some of Michigan's reduced delegation to Obama even though he had removed his name from the ballot there. That's when the Hillary people knew the fix was final, and their fate was sealed.

Now, he is in big trouble with Michiganders. You can tell by the number of times he has been there in just the last few weeks. He needs those Hillary supporters to come in line before the convention, otherwise, many of them will work for McCain. It's too late. The horse is out of the barn.

As if to show that his tin ear is at least as good as George W. Bush's, he then gets the endorsement of global warming prize-winner Al Gore in DETROIT of all places. How do you think that went over with the blue-collar community in Michigan as they ponder the mental and federal assault on the industry that produces "greenhouse gases" for the nation? What were his people thinking? This is the same tin ear that unites a labor union with a well-known anti-war organization to attack war hero McCain as a warmonger. This is supposed to win over the "pry it from my cold dead hands" bunch? Are you kidding me?

He's also in trouble in Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Remember that he generally underperforms his polling data by about 6-10%. He was supposed to win New Hampshire, California, and was almost tied in Pennsylvania. He narrowly lost NH, but was solidly defeated in California and Pennsylvania. The fact is, if it were not for the caucus system in the Democratic primary system, Hillary would have won the nomination easily. Obama's people out-hustled the hustling Clintons. But caucus organization will not help them in the general election. In fact, most of the caucus states he won were states that the Obama people know they have little chance of defeating McCain in this fall.

His problems in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida is why you see his advisors trying to convince big donors that they have another way to get 270 electoral votes without some key battleground states.

This is probably whistling past the graveyard.

The fact of the matter is that Obama, as the most liberal senator in the US Senate, who has made it a campaign mantra to "bring us together", is going to have a hard time finding a winning electoral strategy. He is up against an opponent who can point to dozens of pieces of major legislation that he has crafted with Democrats in the Senate. It's less about race than it is about class.

The biggest giveaway that the Democrat Party is very uneasy about what the top of the ticket may do to the rest of the Democrat Party candidates is the complaints about the faults in the Democrat primary system from the Democrat Senate Majority leader: Harry Reid.

Reid is from a battleground state: Nevada. He knows that Obama causes unique problems, along with his historic diversity benefit, and he is worried about massive defections to the Republican from the neighboring state of Arizona. His complaints about a "flawed system" the other day were another clue that the DNC's internal polling suggests serious problems from the Obama candidacy. Why complain about the system unless you don't like the result!?!

The above examples of the "tin ear" also reveal a certain arrogance about the Obama campaign. In my years as a competitive swimmer, the coaches used to have little sayings on big cards posted on the bulletin board in the locker room. One I have never forgotten was "He can't beat you with his press clippings."

Words to the wise...you can bet John McCain knows that one...