AP: Obama campaign pulling staffers from North Dakota

[featherman]

This a shame. GOP spokesman cites the "Palin Effect" as having energized the GOP. Volunteer efforts will continue. Not sure about advertising.

"Barack Obama, who has deployed more than 50 staffers in North Dakota in an attempt to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1964, is pulling out.

An Obama spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, confirmed Sunday that the campaign's 11 North Dakota offices are being shut and its staffers dispatched to Minnesota and Wisconsin, where recent polls have shown a tight race between Obama and Republican John McCain.

She declined to say how many campaign workers were being shifted, but other Democratic activists put the number at more than 50."

http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D93BFHI00

[WI_DEM]

1. That's the way it goes. It's now late September so you put your resources into states more

promising.

[timeoutofjoint]

3. The 50 state strategy will take lots more $$ and effort

[WI_DEM]

5. he'll still do better, I predict, in ND than any democrat since Jimmy Carter in '76

the 50-state strategy is working but it doesn't gurantee we will win every state we compete in but that we will increase turnout and in this regard I think it will happen. There are more promising red states such as Montana, Virginia, North Carolina, Nevada and Indiana.

[timeoutofjoint]

8. Yes. agree. Obama has been there already and will pick

up more people than in the past.

It will take more election cycles for the strategy to 'catch on'---is all I meant.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. In related news, McCain is having to rush staffers INTO North Carolina

as the race there tightens considerably. I'll tqake the electoral vote trade-off with North Dakota, which we really didn't expect to win anyway.

[WI_DEM]

6. Yes NC 15 electoral votes and ND 3

[Curtland1015]

4. It's just a big chess match. The Obama camp knows when to move its pieces.

It's all "stra-tee-gery".

[LynneSin]

7. Look, it's not just red states like North Dakota. We have very few staffers in Delaware

What few Obama staffers that are here (and they are using Beau Biden's old campaign office) are to co-ordinate carpools of Delaware supporters up to Pennsylvania.

It's not that Obama doesn't care about North Dakota or Delaware, it's just that we need to focus on states that we must win and could win like Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

It's all for the best!