There have been a number of polls recently showing that John McCain is only leading by a small margin in Arizona. They have been widely cited around the blogosphere, but I don’t think many people really have much hope of Obama beating McCain in his home state. The closest I’ve found so far is the Zimmerman poll, showing Obama only trailing by two points in Arizona. Other polls show the race to be close. Rasmussen shows a five point difference today. Project New West shows McCain leading by four.
While I doubt Obama can really carry Arizona, it doesn’t help McCain to be forced to answer questions from the press about whether he’s worried about carrying his home state. With so little time remaining, I doubt Obama would spend any time there as opposed to the battleground states where he has a real chance, but I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth spending some money on last minute advertising money in Arizona. This might force McCain to devote some of his limited resources to ensuring that he is not embarrassed by losing his home state.
Even if Obama doesn’t choose to advertise in Arizona, I’m glad that he will be on prime time nation wide this week for a thirty minute paid show. This guarantees that even areas where he didn’t think it was worth spending much on ads will see him at the end of the campaign, possibly boosting his numbers in the popular vote and maybe even tipping a state which he doesn’t expect to win.
Nice cartoon about Arizona getting close in the polls and the very different treatment of Pennsylvania (“battleground state!” even though Obama now about 11% ahead) and Arizona (“safe for McCain” even though McCain now only about 6% ahead) at the <a href=”http://reasonstobecheerful3.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-does-not-compute.html”>Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3</a> blog…