Obama & 50 State Strategy? Yup, I know a lot of you are doing a double take.
I was surprised too in Fargo on saturday. We'd set up our Stonewall DFL caucus table, thinking we'd again be the only political group there. Having set up and with the table staffed, a couple of our crew wandered the Fargo-Moorhead Pride's display area. And what, to our surprise, did we find? A North Dakota based Obama campaign staffer, set up just around the corner from us! He informed us that the Obama campaign was setting up shop in South Dakota too, both states that Obama lost by 7 percent in 2008.
This is huge, even by big state standards. The ND and SD democrats got their butts kicked in 2010 as we lost a senate seat and two house seats. In both states dems hold hardly a single statewide seat other than their incumbent dem senators, and the one in ND is retiring in 2012. The story is even worse in the state houses, with republicans controlling around three quarters of the seats.
So as you can imagine, the democratic "bench" in both Dakotas has been pretty much wiped out and in serious need of rebuilding. The SD democratic party is showing signs of life, but neither state has seen a major candidate like Stephanie Herserth emerge or re-emerge to wage a 2012 campaign. That makes the Obama campaign's decision to commit resources to these "red" states even more important as the Obama campaign will help rebuild these battered state democratic parties.
So if you live in one of the thinly populated "red" states and were wondering if it was worth getting involved in 2012, here's your answer: Obama's "in" with a 50 state strategy, and we need to get "in" too. So wander over to barackobama.com and sign up!