What Is The Matter With Kansas...

[WhiskeyGirl]

What Is The Matter With Kansas...

posted by John Nichols on 07/16/2008 @ 9:42pm

Supporters of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy have for months suggested that the Democratic contender would be able to compete in Kansas, a state that has backed Republicans in every national election since 1964.

Obama has played up the theory, traveling to the state and celebrating the fact that his mother's roots were there.

But a new Rasmussen poll suggests that Republican John McCain leads Obama by a 52-32 margin.

It is doubtful that even the selection of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, an early and ardent Obama backer, as the party's nominee for vice president would be enough to move the state into the Democratic column.

There was never all the much chance that Kansas was going to be a presidential battleground state. When Obama was pushing the margins, breaking the rules and campaigning as something other than a conventional Democrat, it was imaginable that he might be able to "do something" in the Jayhawk State. But as he has made predictable moves toward the center -- like Al Gore and John Kerry before him -- Obama has done away with the notion that he will rewrite the rules, or redraw the electoral map.

The Rasmussen poll confirms this reality.

Perhaps now we can acknowledge that the limitations on Obama's candidacy and get serious about the contest that is beginning to take shape -- a contest that will end with most red states backing McCain, most blue states backing Obama, and a handful of purple states tipping the balance.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/337257/what_is_the_matter_with_kansas

I didn't think Barack trailed in any state.