Monday, September 13, 2004
JOHN EDWARDS AND THE SHRINKING BATTLEGROUND: On Friday last week John Kerry was in Missouri thanking "his good friend" Dick Gephardt in glowing language. Unfortunately, I don't have a transcript of his remarks, but it went something like: "this is a man I've known for over twenty years who is the most decent, most honorable.... a man who fights for the average guy, a man who cares deeply about the country..........." The emotion from Kerry seemed genuine and heartfelt, and I got the feeling he really believed it. I also got the feeling Kerry wished he had chosen Dick Gephardt as his running mate.

This made me think about Kerry's actual running mate, John Edwards. At the time of Edwards announcement I wrote:

While this pick may play well in the next three weeks I don't know how well it is going to work after Labor Day when the real contest begins....The Edwards pick is a poll-driven mistake...This is a very serious election, and the Bush-Cheney campaign will make that abundantly clear. Kerry would have been better off with the safe, solid choice of Dick Gephardt who at least would have helped potentially win Missouri.

Senator Edwards did give Kerry a little bounce, which can be seen in a our historical chart of the RCP Poll Average. A week before Kerry's VP announcement Bush was up about two points and a week after Edwards was chosen the Kerry/Edwards ticket had moved to roughly a three point lead. So Edwards delivered about a five point bounce that subsequently faded during the rest of July as Kerry headed into his convention in Boston.

But now we are in the middle of September, and you have to wonder just what John Edwards is bringing to the table. The contrast with Dick Cheney that all the pundits were atwitter about in early July suddenly doesn't look so great from the Kerry perspective.

Yesterday the Washington Post ran a front page story from Dan Balz on how 'Kerry's battlefield is shrinking':

As the number of truly competitive states has shrunk, Kerry is faced with the reality that he must pick off one of two big battlegrounds Bush won four years ago -- Florida or Ohio -- or capture virtually every other state still available.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with a calculator and a 2004 electoral map, especially the professional operatives in the Kerry campaign. Balz continues:

The Massachusetts senator spent much of the summer trying to expand the number of battleground states with television advertising and campaign trips to places such as Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana and Virginia.

Arizona, Colorado Louisiana and Virginia? It's not complicated to figure out that if these states are close Bush is finished. So what was their strategy in spending time and money in states that they were only going to carry if they didn't need them to win the election? Maybe they bought in to the conventional wisdom over the summer that Bush was in big, big trouble. Whatever the strategic rationale, it was a major mistake and a misallocation of resources.

With the wasted money and time in states they don't have a prayer of carrying and a VP nominee that can't make a difference in any state that will matter, the Kerry folks have boxed themselves into an electoral corner. So now they are not only staring at how they get this race back to even in the national polls but also how they are going to piece together the necessary 270 Electoral Votes.

Because of the unwise choice of Edwards as a running mate, even if Kerry pulls back to even in the national polls his route to 270 electoral votes is a big problem - and almost impossible if he can't win either Florida or Ohio. Had he chosen Gephardt and put Missouri into play, the Kerry campaign's electoral math would look considerably kinder. Flipping Missouri alone would get Kerry over 270 EV's, and flipping Missouri and New Hampshire would allow for the loss of New Mexico. Wining Missouri, New Hampshire and Nevada would have allowed Kerry to lose Wisconsin and still win the election.

Of course, it is not a sure thing that Gephardt would have been able to deliver Missouri. Given Gallup's latest poll showing Bush ahead by fourteen, maybe even Dick Gephardt wouldn't have been able to deliver his home state. But unlike North Carolina, Missouri is a much more competitive state for Democrats, and in a close election where Kerry had a chance to win, one would think Missouri with Dick Gephardt on the ticket would have been very much in play.

This electoral logic also applied to either Senators Nelson and Graham in Florida. And with 27 Electoral Votes compared to Missouri's 11, the damage to the Bush reelection hopes of flipping Florida would have been decisive.

Instead, Kerry is stuck with a running mate who brings nothing except a pretty smile. The Kerry campaign had run a pretty darn good campaign through June, but starting with the Edwards choice, a wasted convention, an insane comment at the Grand Canyon and no answer to his Vietnam and antiwar past, Kerry has dug himself what may be an insurmountable hole. - J. McIntyre 9:15 am Link | Email | Send to a Friend