Cutting the South?

A week ago, I read that Suffolk University was cutting operations in Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Now it is rumored that several PACs allied with the Obama Campaign are doing the same. Similar rumors are leaking out of Colorado as well.

If this is true, Mr. Obama is playing a dangerous game. The West Coast (78), New England (29), the Altantic Coridor (59), Illinois (20), Minnesota (10), and New Mexico (5) will net Mr. Obama 201 EVs. He is clearly expecting to hold the blue trio of Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), and Wisconsin (10), despite the Romney campaign mounting an assault on those three states. That takes him to 247. That then puts the onus of victory on four states: Ohio (18), Nevada (6), Iowa (5), and New Hampshire (4). This is not a large margin for error.

In fact, it effectivly puts the nearly the entire burden of reelection on holding Ohio. If Mr. Obama wins all the states mentioned above but loses Ohio, he only takes 262 electoral votes. If he wins Ohio, he must take either Nevada or Iowa to secure victory. A New Hampshire and Ohio only win would produce a 269-269 tie and throw things to the House where Republicans hold the majority by state allocation.

However, this is all conjecture at the moment. I highly doubt the Obama campaign, or the majority of it's PACs will openly concede either Virginia or Colorado, which are very close in the RCP standings. Conceding Florida would hurt a bit, but it would free up a large volume of resources as Florida is a very expensive media market.

Much remains to be seen over the next two and a half weeks as to how the campaigns conduct their strategies.