Obama's Own 50 State Strategy (hint: Its Younger than McCain)

Its funny this blog would pop up - I was just talking to my boss today about the ways in which the electoral map is changing because the DNC implemented the 50 State Strategy rather than the previous isolationist philosophy to GOTV in urban areas and traditional democratic strong holds.

Dean's 50 State Strategy built the foundation that was prime for a democratic presidential candidate to capitalize on. With Obama as the presumed nominee its no surprise that his campaign is moving into general election mode with its own.

The Political News blog reports on a recent conference call the Obama campaign did in attempts to feed Wright obsessed reporters the 50 State voter registration drive, to no avail.

The blog goes on to talk about stats from fivethirtyeight.com and the extent to which Obama's youth following and the insane youth turnout will help push him to victory.

"Just as he did with African-Americans, Poblano used his regression model and simulation engine to examine how increases in turnout among two other crucial demographics -- 18-24 year-olds and Latino voters -- would affect Obama’s electoral prospects.

While under 50 percent of both these groups voted in 2004, their participation is expected to improve significantly this year. Young voters are more enthusiastic than ever. Meanwhile, efforts to mobilize the Latino population have so far proved very successful this primary season.

Poblano found that increasing the youth vote by 25 percent would give Obama 16 additional electoral votes and boost his chance of beating McCain by nearly 7 percent (assuming that this group breaks 70-30 towards Obama):

While 18-24 year-olds are spread rather evenly across all 50 states, Poblano points to Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota as states with traditions of high youth turnout. His baseline currently has them all in Obama’s column. But if young voters flock to the polls come November – as they’re expected to – these three states could end up far out of McCain’s reach."

This is great info for Obama, but I think it also proves what we've assumed for a long time that Obama is a stronger top of the ticket candidate that can filter down ballot to local races if coordinated with aggressive state party programs. I think it also bodes well for some of the young candidates we have on the ballot like Scott Kleeb in Nebraska, Andrew Rice in Oklahoma, and Don Betts in Kansas.

They are also all younger than their opponents, that's for sure. In fact, one thing is for certain... they are all younger than John McCain. Here are some other things that are also younger than John McCain....