I love the quote from the Obama spokesman in justifying the expenditure: “We’re matching states where they go up. We’re not going to let them make a play anywhere.”
Now let’s think about that for a moment. They have scarce resources. If Romney stupidly started pouring money into, say, California or Texas, the Obama campaign would not follow them, because those states are decided already. If the other campaign is putting money where it won’t make a difference, you’re not going to put your money up to match it.
Now if Romney poured a ton of money into Iowa, of course the Obama campaign would respond with a similar effort — it’s a close state and could be decisive.
If Obama had unlimited resources, a huge dollar advantage, then he might follow up Romney spending anywhere, but all indications are that the money is fairly even on the two sides.
Obama’s campaign is only going to follow Romney’s lead on expenditures in states where Romney’s expenditures could cause damage to Obama’s chances.
If Michigan was in the bag for Obama, they’d be glad to watch Romney waste money there that could be spent elsewhere. That’s not what they’re doing. They’re concerned that a Romney push could flip the state. They may think it unlikely, but they’re effectively diverting $2M from 50/50 states to a state like Michigan.
And that means they’re concerned about Michigan. The line from the Obama campaign that they’re following Romney’s spending everywhere is just spin.
Michigan has been sliding to the right for nearly a decade now anyway. In 04 John Kerry only won over Bush by around 4%. (probably considerably less if you discount some blatant Detroit fraud) 08 was a historic fluke with Obama and idiot McCain all but said, Michigan ain’t worth my time”.
In 2010 we ran the table and the democrats didn’t win a single seat above the county level and the GOP holds the whole deck of cards outside the two US senate seats and the minority democrat US house delegation.