[tanknetter]

Obama will not lose Illinois.....Take it to the bank.

This smells bad to me, like a head-fake designed to pressure Romney and the RNC to spend money in Illinois rather than elsewhere.

Two historic precedents for this sort of thing. First the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign leaking bogus polling info about Al Gore's support collapsing in CA (followed by a sudden trip by candidate Bush to the state) to draw attention away from what was happening in West Virginia and Tennessee.

Second, Ben Bradlee's infamous "in kind contribution" to the Mondale Campaign in 1984 with a bogus WashingtonPost poll showing Reagan's support in CA collapsing as well. The Reagan/Bush Campaign had to funnel over $1 million extra into CA for another poll and additional outreach ... thus denying Reagan Minnesota and a 50-state sweep.

The focus right now needs to be OH, VA, FL and NC.

[Republican Wildcat]

Very true - however, if you know anyone with a spare $1 billion for us to set up our own Super PAC (vs. having the RNC / Romney campaign and other current Super PACs divert resources from the key battlegrounds) as I said above, let me know...then we could experiment. ;-)

[CreviceTool]

Obama is running ads in the Chicago area. None for Romney so far. Tells me there is a concern. Axelrod runs the campaign from the Prudential office building in Chicago.

http://www.c-span.org/Campaign2012/Events/David-Axelrod-Interview/10737431868-1/

[fortheDeclaration]

RNC isn't going to waste money in Ill.

It is just an interesting observation.

[mwl8787]

I don’t care about Obama winning Illinois or California. But I would love to see him have to pour money in there.

The Romney strategy right now should be to have Super Pacs expand the field, move into new markets such as Philly, Pittsburgh, LA, Minneapolis, move the needle and force Obama to react.

DRAIN OBAMA DRY. I am hearing that the GOP numbers for Sept will eclipse the Obama $181 million announced earlier today.

[mwl8787]

Absent some major event, NC is now out of reach for Obama and firming for Romney. Obama has baled on most advertising and the DCCC has yanked money for endangered Blue Dogs (Kissell?) - left to fend for themselves.

The Dems have problems in NC up and down the ballot. The GOP candidate for Gov is crusing to victory (open seat w retirement of brain dead Bev Perdue).

[dialup_pundit]

Good analysis. I like the history. One telling point, possibly, maybe in Romney’s favor is that 200,000 or so have evacuated Illinois. Hopefully, these people are from Cook County, but I think not. Many acquaintances (mostly GOP) moved into Indiana. So many people moved into IN, that a church built a new building, having re-located from South Holland, Ill to Crete, IN.
I don’t think Obama will lose Ill: Too much corruption.