Posted on 10/02/2012 10:25:44 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
MADISON – President Barack Obama’s next trip to Wisconsin – Thursday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – may well be his last of the campaign, a political expert said Monday.
“I think the Obama campaign sees that it’s been polling ahead in Wisconsin, and they’d like to wrap up the state and get it off the table,” UW-Madison political scientist Barry Burden said.
President Barack Obama returns to Wisconsin on Thursday for what one political exp erts says might be Obama’s last campaign stop in the state this year. If that holds true, it will effectively end a campaign here that has been decidedly different from the one Obama ran four years ago.
Candidate visits have been sparse this year, and the candidates have kept to friendly territory.
That’s a marked contrast from the 2008 race, when Obama and then-GOP presidential candidate John McCain crisscrossed Wisconsin throughout the summer and fall.
Since June, including Thursday’s visit, Obama will have made all of two campaign trips to Wisconsin, to the Democratic strongholds of Milwaukee and Madison.
Over the same period in 2008, Obama was in Wisconsin six times, including stops in La Crosse, Green Bay and Kaukauna, according to the Washington Post’s 2008 campaign tracker [1].
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has been here twice as well – campaigning in GOP-heavy Waukesha and in Janesville with the city’s native son, Paul Ryan, his pick for vice president.
McCain visited Wisconsin seven times between June and October 2008, visiting everywhere from Racine to Mosinee to Hudson.
On Monday, Romney spokesman Ben Sparks said, “We’ll see Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan both in Wisconsin plenty between now and election day.”
But he gave no details on when – or where – those visits would come.
The Obama campaign did not immediately return a message from Wisconsin Reporter seeking comment.
But Barbara Adams, a recent Green Bay retiree who supports Obama, doesn’t think it matters that Obama hasn’t visited the region this campaign season.
“I don’t have an opinion on that, I guess,” Adams said. “I don’t think it’s like, ‘Wow, he doesn’t care about us.’ He certainly does.”
Having campaign stops in urban areas that are friendly to the given candidate has a two-fold effect: It rallies the largest base of support possible and makes it easier for campaigns to gather large crowds, which looks good on TV.
But presidential candidates cannot win Wisconsin by simply shoring up their bases in the southern and south-eastern regions, experts say.
“The full northern half of the state plays an important role in swinging the state in one way or the other,” said political scientist Charles Franklin, who oversees Marquette Law School’s political poll. [2]
Obama handily beat McCain, by 14 percent, in Wisconsin. But less than half of his vote total, 45 percent, came from Milwaukee and Dane counties.
Ultimately, he won 59 of 72 counties in 2008.
He beat McCain by 14 percent.
But less than half of Obama’s vote total, 45 percent, came from Milwaukee and Dane counties.
In the gubernatorial race two years later, Dane and Milwaukee counties heavily favored Democrat Tom Barrett.
It was Scott Walker, however, who walked away with the support of 58 counties, and the win.
“I think those of us down here in the south and southeast (portion of Wisconsin) probably don’t appreciate how the balance of power can switch … by whether the rest of the state is sort of moved in a consistent direction,” by one party or the other, Franklin said.
Campaigns, of course, are far more than candidate pit-stops.
Ground games and get-out-the-vote drives will continue until Election Day.
And campaign “surrogates” have made a few additional stops in Wisconsin – with Vice President Joe Biden visiting Green Bay and Eau Claire, Ryan stopping in De Pere and the candidates’ wives campaigning a couple of times as well.
Democrats who have won statewide in the past have done so by at least being competitive in the Green Bay area, Franklin said, noting that the Marquette poll indicates that Obama and Romney are neck-and-neck in the Green Bay media market, which stretches toward Wausau.
Marquette’s latest poll will be released Wednesday.
The most-recent Marquette poll showed Obama with a 14-point lead in the state.
Real Clear Politics, however, which tracks political polls, indicates a tighter race [3], with Obama winning by an average of 6.7 percent.
Said Burden: “If the polls keep trending the way they are, and it looks like Obama is 5,6,7 points ahead with just a few weeks to go, I don’t see why he would return to the state.”
Ryan Ekvall contributed to this report
Contact Adshead at kadshead@wisconsinreporter.com
URL to article: http://wisconsinreporter.com/presidential-campaigns-of-08-12-markedly-different
URLs in this post:
[1] Washington Post’s 2008 campaign tracker: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/candidates/barack-obama/states/wi/
[2] political poll.: https://law.marquette.edu/poll/results-data/
[3] indicates a tighter race: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/wi/wisconsin_romney_vs_obama-1871.html
Wisconsin ping: Analysis of the campaign in WI
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I must point out that Ryan is currently campaigning in Iowa — down the Mississipi R. and will be in WI later this week. Also, Obama is going directly from the debate in CO to a camaign event in Madison on Wednesday.
Either the campaign of the Current Occupant is so confident of its lead, they consider this a done deal, or they have realized that their own internal polls are not lying, and they are cutting their losses.
The “margin” of the polls is still largely faked.
Count the yard signs. There are just not that many Obama supporters willing to put their sentiments on display.
I find this odd. WI has turned in the last 2 years. I remember the recent Walker race when the media said it would be close, and it he won by 7-8 points. It was not even close to being close.
Not so different. In both campaigns, the GOP ran a lame camdidate. In both campaigns, the GOP is doing everything it can to lose.
If Obama has to go back to Wisconsin after Thursday that’s proof positive they’re lying to the media about their internal poll numbers.
And note that he’s going to Madison where he’s certain to draw a large crowd, rather than Milwaukee where the mayor ascertained a crowd of less than 5000 to be “about 18,000” and got caught.
And everybody with Obama signs has TWO. (There aren’t that many in this Conty. I know of less than 10 — 2 to each house.)
Romney is not even midley enough for the famous WI squish Ann Althouse (outhouse).
Oh really? Is Obama going strong in the Badger state?
Some of the polls show him doing well, but nobody believes them.
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