Obama's unprecedented success in fundraising, grassroots support and registering new voters during the Democratic Primary may have been the catalyst for an overconfident plan engineered by campaign manager David Plouffe.

It was only a month ago that the Obama campaign was eager to talk about giving the McCain campaign a run for its money in Georgia, as well as other states in the Deep South, orchestrated through greater African American turnout and strong grassroots organization.

Money was sent to Alaska, North Dakota, Indiana, Georgia, Montana and North Carolina as part of an offensive strategy in traditionally red states. But in a talk with McCain's traveling press corps last week in Chicago, Plouffe stated that the campaign has now ceased advertising in the Peach State and is diverting much of those resources to North Carolina (Recent polls coming out of there have not been favorable either).

As the Wall Street Journal noted after Plouffe's talk, "The withdrawal is dramatic considering the amount of resources the Obama campaign dispatched to Georgia and throughout the South." Yet Plouffe made sure to emphasize that the campaign was still going "full steam ahead" in North Dakota, Montana, and Indiana (The RCP Electoral Count now has Montana, North Carolina, and North Dakota as 'Leaning McCain' and Georgia as 'Solid McCain'. Plouffe did not rule out Alaska either, although it is now certainly in McCain's hands).

The Journal took the information session to be "a grudging concession by some Obama campaign operatives that certain states once deemed winnable may be more of a long shot than once thought." In other words, the once vaunted "50-state strategy" is now anything but.

Consider what could have been a more sober strategy from the start. The campaign could have concentrated its advantage in resources, money and volunteers on the traditional, smaller set of battleground states to absolutely overpower the McCain campaign. Instead, Plouffe has always seemed to revel in the idea of creating as many electoral scenarios as possible for an Obama victory. The campaign has taken the risk of stretching itself too thin and reducing its ability to significantly overpower McCain anywhere. Montana Democrats may ultimately waste money and resources registering voters in a long-shot chance of victory when those resources could otherwise be used to shore up Obama's stronghold in northern Virginia or urban areas in Colorado.

Plouffe may still prove to be a genius for designing this ambitious plan. Obama may be propelled to victory by winning previously red states the Democrats have forfeited in the past. But if this plan backfires, Plouffe will be responsible for blowing one of the biggest opportunities Democrats have had to take the White House in a very long time.

If McCain wins this election by squeaking out victories in traditional battleground states like Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, New Hampshire, Colorado, and others; it will be Plouffe's head Democrats will be after for getting greedy and wasting money where they shouldn't have.

Greg Bobrinskoy is an Associate Editor at RealClearPolitics