NYT: Obama’s War Chest Drives a 50-State Strategy

[BeyondGeography]

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: June 22, 2008

Senator Barack Obama is drawing up plans for extensive advertising and voter-turnout drives across the nation, hoping to capitalize on his expected fund-raising advantage over Senator John McCain to force Republicans to compete in states they have not had to defend in decades. Less than three weeks after securing the Democratic nomination, Mr. Obama is already dispatching paid staff members to all 50 states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns so often fought in just a contained group of contested territories. His aides and advisers said they did not believe Obama necessarily has a serious chance of winning in many of the traditionally Republican states, but rather that he can at least draw Mr. McCain into spending time and money there while also swelling the rolls of Democratic voters and supporting other Democrats on the ballot.

...Campaign and party officials have said that because of his decision this week to forgo public financing and the fund-raising and spending limits that go with it, Mr. Obama’s budget for the rest of the year could be well above $300 million. But Mr. Obama’s fund-raising slowed abruptly in May, when the campaign raised $22 million, $10 million less than it had in April and an even sharper drop relative to his monthly performances earlier in the year. The decline was evidence that Mr. Obama might have to work hard to keep donations coming in at the record pace he has been setting.

Still, Mr. Obama’s allies said his success at building a huge network of donors should give his campaign the resources to centralize its effort in a way that Senator John Kerry could not when he was the Democratic nominee in 2004. Mr. Kerry’s depleted coffers and reliance on public funds forced him to count on outside groups to sign up voters and run advertisements on his behalf.

With Mr. McCain’s acceptance of public financing restricting him to a budget of $84.1 million this fall, strategists inside and outside Mr. Obama’s campaign say his decision to opt out of the system is well worth the criticism he has received this week for doing so, even from some allies.

...The campaign is in many ways building on a strategy championed by Howard Dean, the party chairman who has been pressing Democrats to build a presence in all states rather than focus primarily on battlegrounds. But Mr. Obama is putting his own stamp on the plan by moving much of the party’s operations from Washington to his headquarters in Chicago and installing Paul Tewes, one of his top organizers, to oversee it. Party leaders in Republican-leaning states like Georgia and Montana are already reporting an influx of paid Obama staffers and volunteers who were sent there to begin registering potential Obama voters. Mr. Obama’s team is also sending resources to Virginia, which no Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1964...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/us/politics/22obama.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

[Hope And Change]

1. Excellent!

[TheDonkey]

2. GOBAMA!