Encouraging cash and state office signs from Obama

Bloomberg has an interesting article on campaign cash and offices for the forthcoming US Presidential election.

The recent upward blip in advertising by McCain appears to be explained by his campaign needing to "empty its coffers", ready to accept post-convention federal funding. Obama, meanwhile, is free from federal rules and, after the convention, will have "two to three times" more to spend than McCain, especially as his (Obama's) campaign (in sharp contrast to McCain's) has been mainly funded by small donors, to whom he can return for more money repeatedly.

There is also some interesting news on campaign offices. Basically, because he is flush with funds, Obama is free to open as many campaign offices as he wants, where he wants. This includes numerous ones in states which the Democrats have not bothered with in recent campaigns, such as Alaska, North Carolina and Indiana. This reflects some encouraging nimble-footedness on the part of the Obama campaign, which is supported by history. If you look back in time, the electoral map of US Presidential elections has changed a lot over the years. J.F.Kennedy, for example, lost California and won Texas. Both those events would be almost unthinkable nowadays. At each election over the years, there has been a significant shift in the way the states vote. So, it is very reassuring that Obama is looking to take advantage of this trend, rather than just banging away at the (recently) usual battlegrounds such as Ohio and Florida.

McCain, meanwhile, is struggling to set up enough campaign offices, even in strong Republican states.