Now comes Karl Rove to tell us which states to watch in the presidential campaign!
To win, Mr. Obama needs to pick up 18 electoral votes more than John Kerry received, meaning Mr. Obama must carry Colorado or Virginia and add another small state to his column. If Mr. McCain carries Michigan as well as Ohio, it would make Mr. Obama's Electoral College math very difficult. And if Mr. McCain can limit GOP losses to one or two small states from those won by the GOP in 2004, he'll be America's 44th president. (Wall Street Journal, August 14)
Even when attempting to state the obvious, Rove can't get it straight. There is no logical connection between the two parts of the first sentence. To win, Obama doesn't need either Virginia or Colorado. Just Ohio would do. Also, by my math, which is admittedly not The Math, Colorado plus "another small state" would not be enough to get Obama to 270.
I think all the talk about Michigan can be accounted for simply: McCain has no other prospects. It's strange--well, not really--that Rove talks about Obama losing to Clinton among Ohio Democrats but doesn't mention that McCain lost to Romney among Michigan Republicans. It would be just too dispiriting for Republicans if they were to admit that McCain's best and probably only chance is to win a large subset of the states Bush carried in 2004--say, all of them but Iowa and New Mexico. Rove says as much in his last sentence.
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