Rocky Road to Obama's Re-Election

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/article1196157.ece

In 2008 the President sweeped up 365 electoral votes, a squashing of McCain's 173, but as the election process merely begins to get heated up there are serious doubts as to whether or not Obama can even win the necessary 270 putting any land slides aside.

Florida's polls show that at the moment the President is viewed favorably by "barely" four out of ten voters and this could be a problem considering the extra electoral points Florida gained this year. Democrats are staying positive, however, crediting Obama with setting up a system from his last election so that he could even lose Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio and still manage to get the electoral vote. On the flip side though, the possibility of that happening is a very real one, and the potential loss is not just in major battleground states like those mentioned above. He also is losing popularity in the Mid-West and Mid-Atlantic. Republic strategist Carl Forti said, "You look anywhere except the northeast and the extreme left coast and Obama's got a problem...Obama currently has problems in Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. All of the sudden the GOP doesn't have to get a whole lot more to reach 270."

To make matters worse for Obama, the states won by McCain in 2008 now have six more points and Pennsylvania, which although often Democratic can go either way, may have the electoral votes go to the winners of congressional districts which would break up the votes and likely keep all 20 from going to Obama (a consideration by Republican leaders in the state of course).

The Democrats are not pulling their hair out yet, though. Obama's team is once again prepping for a 50-state plan of attack to give him lots of wiggle room.  "Our goal is to build the biggest organization as possible to ensure we have the widest playing field as possible in 2012,'' says Ben LaBolt the national press secretary for Obama's campaign, "Not only does that mean not walking away from any state, but it means contesting heavily on a wider map." The Obama camp seems to be putting a lot of faith in their many volunteers as well as a growing population of Hispanics and Blacks in traditionally Republican states.

The Republicans, however, are not so confident that Obama should be as relaxed as his camp is making him out to be. Rick Wiley, the Republican National Committee political director says, "President Obama is losing ground with Democrats and independents rapidly in key battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan...this free fall is requiring his campaign to try and expand the map into non-traditional states." Republican strategist Forti also believes that Obama will likely lose up to 5% of the white vote and that may not be able to recover from that loss despite his efforts in normally Republican states.

No one will know the answers to these hypotheses of course until election day actually comes but it is absolutely clear that the battle has begun among all candidates. Personally, I think Obama needs to worry about the loss of the youth vote and likely that of the minority votes. Not that they will necessarily hop the fence to the other side but there is a good chance they may not come out to vote at all. Based on the numbers of approval he is definitely going to have fight this time around.