How McCain wins

Earlier this morning I posted on McCain’s narrowing path to the White House. Here’s one plausible scenario for a Republican win:

McCain holds onto Florida, Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina. In some of these states, he trails by a few points — but these are voters who have a tradition of swinging to the GOP in the final days of a presidential race.

So that’s the “easy” part.

The Republican then has to win Colorado and Nevada – victories that will require a mini-surge in the West. A bit more challenging, but doable.

Finally, McCain has to capture both Ohio and Virginia, bringing him to a squeaky-narrow 279 Electoral College Vote victory.

In football terms, John McCain has to run the field, picking off eight very tough states.

How tough? In five of those must-win states, Obama currently leads by 3-5%.

In two others (Missouri and North Carolina) it’s a dead tie.

Only in Indiana does McCain hold a slender, 2.5% advantage.

By contrast, Barack Obama only needs to pick off one — or at most two — of the battleground states to win the Presidency.

Which means that in the final days, if Obama starts to sag in one of the battlegrounds, he can simply shift his resources to lock in a different state.

McCain doesn’t have that luxury.

He and Sarah Palin have to swing the national mood far enough by November 4th that they can go eight-for-eight.

Have a different scenario in mind? Leave a comment…