Obama has eye on South Carolina

[Wretched Excess]

I don't think he has a prayer in SC, but he could make mccain spend some of his precious
campaign cash in a state that he should be able to take for granted.

Obama has eye on S.C.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is getting ready to send a team of paid staffers to South Carolina in hopes of swinging this traditionally red state to the Democrats this November. Campaign officials are keeping tight-lipped on how many people will be sent here, or how much they're willing to spend.

But the real question is: Can Obama pull off a win or is it just a waste of money?

Even if Obama doesn't earn victories in the red states he's reaching out to this election cycle — and S.C. isn't the only one by far — the campaign argues that they're building a Democratic base for the long-term by registering new voters, particularly blacks, young adults, and transplants. (And we definitely know a little about transplants here in the Lowcountry ...)

Besides that, the campaign efforts could help Democrats win more congressional seats or local and state offices.

Republican officials say Obama hasn't got a chance of turning South Carolina blue, and even Democratic officials here think it would be unlikely. But, then again, stranger things have happened.

From The State:
But, still high on Obama’s landslide S.C. primary victory, some Democrats think many more Palmetto State voters are ready to embrace their party.

“To carry the state is a bit of a long shot for Obama,” said Don Fowler, former Democratic National Committee chairman and a S.C. superdelegate to the Democrats’ national convention in August. “But it’s not completely improbable. He attracted a diverse group in the primary. He has an appeal that’s indefinable.”

The key, Fowler said, will be registering African-American voters, who vote Democratic about 90 percent of the time, and chipping off more white and independent voters.

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[franksolich]

I suspect Barry "Goldwater" Obama is stretching himself a little much.

It's true he's got a very large treasury, but the money is after all limited, and could run out.

One recent example is that apparently his campaign expects him to show up in Omaha, with the hopes of getting at least one of Nebraska's five electoral votes (Nebraska, like Maine, gives an electorial vote to the winner of a congressional district, instead of the winner of the statewide vote).

This threw me for a loop, because in the past, the Democrats have always expressed a hope of getting one electoral vote from Nebraska.....from the congressional district of Lincoln, not Omaha.  Lincoln of course being the state capital and home of the University of Nebraska, thus governmental employees and students who lean Democrat.

But it never happened; Lincoln remained red.

And so now Omaha, the largest city in the state, and home to the labor unions and special interests; a city once dominated by one of the most vile, the most corrupt, urban political machines (one can guess the party)--but a city that during presidential elections sometimes votes more red than even Lincoln.

In answer to the obvious question, Omaha is circa 8% of those African-derived.

My prediction for the election, as stated in the nocturnally foul one's stickied comment, still stands, and this is one of the ways it's going to happen.  An overambitious campaign at the beginning, money being tossed hand-over-fist, money (and time) starting to dry up, money (and time) evaporating, and so a desperate last-stand effort to carry at least a few usually-Democrat states.

Just as what happened in 1972 and 1984.

[Crazy Horse]

WE never underestimate the areas around Orangeburg and such