John McCain has announced his end-game strategy to win the Presidency. He's decided that in order to reach 270 electoral votes, he must win either Minnesota, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. This strategy is reflected by the fact that Minnesota is the only battleground state where McCain continues to out-spend Obama.
Ok, fine. This gives me an excuse to talk some more about the election I care about most this year beyond the race for the Presidency: Al Franken's attempt to unseat incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman.
So what's really going on in Minnesota? Well, that depends on who you want to believe. You can look at one set of polls showing Obama leading McCain by 11 and Franken leading Coleman by 2, or you can look at another poll that shows Obama leading by only 1 and Franken trailing by 10. Independent candidate Dean Barkley might have 19% support, or he might have only 3% support. Arrgh!
Obama last visited the state on August 7. It's time for him to get serious about Minnesota and delivering the kind of big win that will have coattails for Al Franken. Al Gore will be campaigning with Franken tomorrow. That's good, but it's not enough.
In other news, Sarah Palin gave an interview today with (surprise) Fox News in which she indicated that she was "annoyed" with the way Katie Couric treated her in Palin's disastrous interview with CBS.
Said Palin, "It's like, man, no matter what you say, you are going to get clobbered. If you choose to answer a question, you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too."
I mention this because it's emblematic of her attitude toward the press and her performance in last night's debate. She's offended by the idea of journalists asking her questions. She believes it's presumptuous of the press to think they know what she should talk about. She knows what she should talk about. That's why when she didn't like the debate questions that Gwen Ifill asked her last night, she simply changed the subject and stuck to her prepared responses.
Democrats were a little concerned before last night that Palin would give a performance that would reignite the kind of excitement she generated during and after the Republican convention, but it didn't happen. Joe Biden did a good job. With 32 days to go, it's all over but the shouting (angry shouting, that is, from John McCain).
Update: This just-released Star-Tribune poll has Franken up by nine. Hooray! Also, fivethirtyeight.com points out that despite allowing McCain to outspend him on the air in Minnesota, Obama has 28 field offices there while McCain has only 9.
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