TAMPA — If you don’t think Florida is a must-win state for John
McCain, I’ll wait here while you pick up your national electoral
map and try to figure a way McCain could get 270 electoral votes
without Florida’s 27.
See, you can’t do it. I couldn’t either. Au the contraire, there
are various ways Obama can get to 270 without Florida. So there’s a
fight on here, with both candidates spending a lot of time in the
Sunshine State and a lot on television adds in Florida’s 10 (count
‘em — 10!) media markets. If McCain doesn’t win in red Florida
it’s game over, and Michelle Obama can pick out the drapes she
would like to see in the Oval Office.
Early on, Obama is well ahead in enriching Florida TV outlets
with about $5 million spent here in June alone against almost
nothing on the McCain side. But that won’t stay the same. Arlene
DiBenigno, who heads up McCain’s campaign in Florida, said the old
fighter jock will be on the small screen in Florida. And she can’t
help but comment on the small return Obama seems to be getting on
his large media investments here.
“Obama has spent a large amount of money in Florida and his
numbers don’t seem to be moving,” she told me.
Moving down if anything. The four statewide polls taken in
August and listed on “Real Clear Politics” show McCain leading
Obama by between three and six points in Florida, an improvement
over McCain’s July numbers. Millions spent on ads and a week’s
world tour as pretend President netted Obama a small loss of
support in Florida. These poll results mirror national outcomes
that show Obama’s approval going down and negatives going up,
though he clings to a small lead in most national polls.
DiBenigno suggests that because Obama’s approach is uncongenial
to a majority of Floridians, he’s bumping on a ceiling in the mid
to high forties, a ceiling that even massive television ads can’t
raise. And she’s also skeptical of the large number of Obama
grass-roots volunteers who are supposed to be working the
state.
“We can’t find these volunteers,” DiBenigno said. “Where are
they?”
They’re out there beavering away delivering Obama’s superior
messages on the nation’s economy, on foreign policy, veterans’
benefits, et al., according to Adrianne Marsh, statewide press
secretary for the Florida Obama campaign.
“We’re putting on a major effort,” Marsh told me. “We’re
competing statewide, conceding no ground.”
These are the kinds of things one would expect Obama campaign
types to say, along with phrases like “new kind of campaign,” “a
real eagerness for change,” and “talking politics in a different
way” that are sprinkled throughout Marsh’s political patter.
NEITHER DIBENIGNO NOR MARSH could tell me how often or when their
candidates would be in the state, those decisions to be made later
in the flow of the battle. But both whooped up their surrogates,
who will be coming to Florida. McCain would seem to have the
advantage here.
Mz Hillary, the nation’s ex-wife, will be campaigning Thursday
in Broward (Ft. Lauderdale) and Palm Beach counties, the bluest of
the blue in Florida. McCain, on the other hand, has had and will
have again Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a much more simpatico
sort, working South Florida, especially the large Jewish population
there that has traditionally voted Democratic. Which one would you
rather listen to?
The McCain/Obama confrontation will activate the usual groups,
with young people, African Americans, gays, academics, and most in
the mainstream media going for Obama, while veterans, business
persons, blue-collar workers, and seniors break for McCain.
Young people, especially college students, will be problematic
for Obama. Counting on them to vote or work in campaigns is a dodgy
business. Every presidential cycle Democrats say young people will
flock to the polls to support their candidate. It hasn’t happened
yet. As a group, college students have a low interest in politics,
even though those who are interested are often strident about it.
And Godot will show up before these folks report for work.
THERE’S DISAGREEMENT between the two camps over who’s doing best
with Hispanics. Marsh says Obama has this group wrapped up. Hold
your caballos, DiBenigno says. She points out that Hispanics, an
awful term made up by the drones at the U.S. Census Bureau, are not
monolithic. Even Cubans-Americans, especially the second and third
generations, don’t vote on Cuba policy alone. And most of Florida’s
Hispanic now are not Cuban-Americans. Hispanics need to be
approached like other voters with a wide variety of interests, she
says, and this is what McCain is doing.
DiBenigno should know what she’s talking about on this one.
She’s a Cuban-American whose maiden name is Diaz and who came up in
Miami. “We don’t vote on that issue alone just because that’s what
our grandparents did,” she said.
For all their disagreements, Marsh and DiBenigno agree on where
the race will be decided in Florida. Be prepared for election night
commentators to drone on about the I-4 Corridor, which crosses
Central Florida from Daytona Beach to St. Petersburg. This is the
most politically competitive part of the fourth largest state in
the nation. The northern part of the state is McCain country, and
it’s Obama in a walk down south (except for the Ft. Myers area on
the southwest coast).
It will be critical for both candidates to get their voters to
turn out election day. Both camps say they will contest the entire
state. But don’t look for Obama to be giving many speeches in
Pensacola, or for McCain to be polishing his act in Boca Raton.
Here in Tampa, however, we’ll likely be tripping over both of them
a lot between now and November 4.
