Obama to campaign primarily in red states in final two weeks of campaign

[WI_DEM]

***meaning they must feel good about the blue states.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. – Exuding confidence, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama intends to spend the overwhelming amount of his time in the campaign's final two weeks in states that voted Republican in 2004 as he reaches for a decisive victory.

His 21-month campaign marathon likely will end with a rally outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., where it began in February 2007 on a brutally cold day.

Obama, who would become the nation's first black president, was buoyed before he left his hotel room on Sunday by an endorsement from Colin Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later as secretary of state under Republican presidents.

"I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change and that's why I'm supporting Barack Obama, not out of any lack of respect or admiration for Sen. John McCain," said Powell, secretary of state in President Bush's first term.

Separately, Obama's campaign disclosed raising $150 million in September, obliterating the old record of $66 million it had set only one month earlier. The money is fueling a late-campaign advertising barrage, much of it in traditionally Republican states, that McCain and his party have been unable to match.

Despite a seemingly nonstop run of favorable polls in a country clamoring for change, Obama routinely cautions his crowds not to assume victory, reminding them that he suffered an upset in the New Hampshire primary last January despite holding comfortable leads in surveys before the vote.

Still, at a boisterous rally Sunday, he said McCain was "out of ideas and almost out of time."

He and his aides appear so confident of his prospects that apart from a brief stop in Madison, Wis., next Thursday, Obama currently has no plans during the next 10 days to return to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire or any other state that voted for John Kerry in 2004.

Instead, he intends to spend two days this week in Florida, where early voting begins on Monday, and travel to Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico and possibly Nevada and Indiana. Those states hold 97 electoral votes combined, and Bush all in 2004.

Obama also may stop in West Virginia, where his campaign recently bought statewide television advertising in a late attempt to put the state's five electoral votes into serious contention.

"I don't want to say he won't go to a Blue State, but we're certainly concentrating on expanding the map," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist.

By contrast, McCain generally divides his time between states that usually vote Republican and a dwindling number that do not. He spent the weekend in Virginia and Ohio, both of which Bush carried in 2004.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_el_pr/obama

[texastoast]

1. PLEASE let him come to Texas! n/t

[soccermomforobama]

2. I could not agree more n/t

[FVZA_Colonel]

3. Given that McCain seems to be going for broke trying to flip PA, I hope he doesn't ignore it.

But this could help with Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Missouri, and other states he has a strong chance in.

[WI_DEM]

4. I could see McCain camping out in PA and pouring most of his advertising into the state

but I'm sure if the polls look like they are getting closer that Obama would come back.