Earlier this morning I posted on McCain’s narrowing path to the White House. Here’s one plausible scenario for a Republican win:<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
So that’s the “easy” part.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Finally, McCain has to capture both Ohio and Virginia, bringing him to a squeaky-narrow 279 Electoral College Vote victory.<\/p>\n
In football terms, John McCain has to run the field, picking off eight very tough states.<\/p>\n
How tough? In five of those must-win states, Obama currently leads by 3-5%.<\/p>\n
In two others (Missouri and North Carolina) it’s a dead tie.<\/p>\n
Only in Indiana does McCain hold a slender, 2.5% advantage.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Barack Obama only needs to pick off one — or at most two — of the battleground states to win the Presidency.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
McCain doesn’t have that luxury.<\/p>\n
He and Sarah Palin have to swing the national mood far enough by November 4th that they can go eight-for-eight.<\/p>\n
Have a different scenario in mind? Leave a comment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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