Campaign Diaries

With both campaigns preparing spots to be broadcast nationally during the Olympics and releasing attacks ads that could work as effectively in Virginia as in Wisconsin, we have yet to see state-specific strategies in the campaigns’ advertisement efforts.

Now, however, Barack Obama looks ready to hit John McCain by highlighting weak points specific to different states. Today, the campaign launched an ad in Nevada, blasting McCain for his support for opening Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste site:

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNbAv7K7oa4"]

In one of the most important battleground states of this election - Nevada’s 5 electoral votes, combined with Iowa and New Mexico, would get Obama to an electoral college tie and thus probably the election - this ad is effective in that it ties McCain to the wrong side of a charged issue and uses his own words against him to show he is concerned enough about the site’s safety that he would not want to have it in Arizona. This is an issue that would obviously have no impact on the election in any other state but Nevada and you can be sure Democrats will milk it continually for the next few months.

However, the Kerry campaign had embarked on the same strategy four years ago, making President Bush’s support for Yucca Mountain (after having pledged to veto it in the 2000 campaign) one of the central arguments of the Nevada campaign. This New York Times article from August 11th confirms Kerry’s play on this issue - but it also shows that the Bush campaign made the most of votes Kerry had cast in the past (as they did on most issue) as they “scour[ed] Mr. Kerry’s Senate record to show six instances over a decade in which he cast votes that could be construed as supporting storage at Yucca Mountain.” Said a Republican official: ”The Kerry-Edwards ticket was for Yucca Mountain before they were against it, and Nevadans should not be fooled by election-year pandering.”

The GOP managed to somewhat blunt Kerry’s advantage on Yucca Mountain by using a strategy that will not be available for them against Barack Obama, who has a far thinner voting record in the Senate. Also, unlike neighboring New Mexico, Arizona and California, Bush did not improve his wining margin in Nevada from 2000 to 2004, suggesting Kerry did hit a nerve and that it is wise of Obama to exploit it.

In Ohio, meanwhile, the Obama campaign has found another issue that it believes could hurt the McCain campaign. In 2003, top McCain adviser Rick Davis lobbied Congress to support DHL’s buyout of Airborne Express; in the process, he convinced McCain to support the buyout. Now, DHL is looking to close an Airborne Express facility in Wilmington, Ohio - threatening 8000 jobs and the local economy. The obvious connection between this story and the McCain campaign makes it a prime issue for Democrats to exploit.

Yesterday, I linked to a radio ad the campaign is running in the state (you can listen to it here) that accuses McCain of being responsible for DHL’s decision: “It was McCain who used his influence in the Senate to help foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio.” On a conference call yesterday, Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe confirmed that they were planning to make this story into Ohio’s Yucca Mountain: “[McCain's] appearances in Ohio were completely overshadowed by this. And by November 4 in the Cincinnati and Dayton markets this is something that is going to be known by every voter in this area.”

Expect a TV ad to complement the radio ad soon, then. More generally, Democrats are looking to tie McCain to the declining economy and make him pay for the electorate’s malaise. That the Arizona Senator is not that fond of discussing economic issues makes it that much more urgent for the Obama campaign to force him to campaign on these issues in places like Ohio and Michigan that are hit particularly strongly by the economic downturn.

Finally, the next week could be decisive in locking Hawaii’s four electoral votes in the Democratic column. You might remember that a late string of polls in 2004 suggested that this usually reliable blue state was in reach for the Bush campaign, which immediately dispatched Dick Cheney to spend a few days in Hawaii. Kerry ended up winning comfortably, but Bush cut his losing margin from 18% in 2000 to 9% in 2004. This year, however, Obama’s presence on the ballot seems to guarantee Democrats victory since this is the state in which Obama was born and raised. And in case there was any risk that McCain will be competitive here, the fact that Obama is now spending a week vacationing there (with the local media certain to cover his ever move) should cement the state’s “safe Obama” status.