Obama sees possible win without Ohio, Florida

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The trips, the speeches, and the moments of Decision ’08. A look at the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain.

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In a telling bit of scheduling, Obama declared himself within reach of the nomination at the statehouse in Iowa, yet another state he hopes to put in play.

Plouffe is warning Democrats that McCain is an appealing candidate who has proved he can take votes from the middle before and could do so again. McCain won New Hampshire as a GOP candidate in 2000 and 2008, thanks in large part to the state's high number of independent voters.

Clinton won Michigan's renegade primary after the national party stripped the state of its delegates for moving its contest to January. Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot. Clinton handily won the Pennsylvania primary in April, gaining strong support from white, working-class voters.

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Plouffe argues that McCain squandered his opportunity to reach independent voters in the past three months.

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Obama, McCain focus on battleground state
June 10: NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd talk about the presidential race and the candidates' chances of winning toss-up states.
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McCain's aides acknowledge frustration among fellow Republicans for the slow-to-start campaign. Even though McCain clinched his party's nomination in early March, his supporters didn't name operatives to run the must-win states, let alone open offices in key states. While Democrats hammered each other in their marathon contest, McCain left aides from his primary states sitting still, waiting for orders. It took more than two months for McCain's national headquarters to approve budgets for the battleground states.

The task, Plouffe said, is to define McCain as tied to Bush on the economy, the war and abortion rights. He said the campaign will go on offense against McCain, besides playing aggressive defense when criticized.

That promise was also given by Obama, who said Friday night, "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun." Critics have questioned why a candidate who promotes a new kind of politics planned such bare-knuckles tactics.

Among independent voters, McCain and Obama are about tied in favorability ratings in recent polls.

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Plouffe in recent days has been making his pitch aggressively — part cheerleading, part sales job. Many of Clinton's supporters remain frustrated with how national Democrats resolved the issue of Michigan's delegates, agreeing to seat all of them at the nominating convention but penalizing them by half for violating the calendar, and Plouffe has tried to quell that frustration.

He wraps up the pitches by asking Democrats to imagine Obama taking the oath of office. On Friday at the Capitol City Brewery, about a block from where that would happen, Plouffe pointed toward the Capitol steps to reinforce the visual.

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