McCain shifts staff, surrogates into Indiana
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain conceded battleground Michigan to Democrat Barack Obama, a major retreat as he struggles to regain his footing in a campaign increasingly dominated by economic issues. In another sign of McCain’s woes, his campaign signaled that it would counter Obama’s efforts in Indiana, a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1964. And, a New Hampshire survey showed the Republican trailing by double digits. With polls showing Obama leading comfortably, McCain’s campaign confirmed it was pulling staff and advertising out of economically distressed Michigan last week, and one adviser said it was "off the list." The GOP nominee also canceled a visit there slated for next week. Michigan, with 17 electoral votes, voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004, but Republicans had poured money into an effort to try to place it in their column this year. "Operations will be scaled back," said Mike DuHaime, the campaign’s political director. In Indiana, surveys show a competitive race after Obama spent months pouring money into the state and Republicans resisted countering. Now the Republican National Committee is running TV ads to fight for the state’s 11 votes, and McCain senior adviser Greg Strimple said: "We’re going to go there." The Michigan decision marked the first time either McCain or Obama has tacitly conceded a traditional battleground state in a race for the White House with little more than a month remaining. Obama said McCain’s struggle in Michigan appeared to be due to his position on the economy. He said voters in the state and across the country will decide the election based on who they believe will get it moving again. "I think Sen. McCain was in a difficult situation, and continues to be in a difficult situation, because his economic policies just don’t vary very much from the president’s," Obama said in an interview with the Detroit Free Press during a visit to Michigan last week. By pulling out of vote-rich Michigan, McCain conceded a large part of the electoral map in the heart of the industrial Midwest. As Nov. 4 approaches, both sides are adjusting their strategies daily to find the best state-by-state path to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. McCain had identified Michigan early on as a potential target, particularly in light of Obama’s troubles with white, working-class voters in other Rust Belt primaries although he skipped Michigan because of a Democratic Party fight over its primary date and didn’t set up a campaign organization there during the primary. But Michigan posed other difficulties for McCain. It has a Democratic governor and the nation’s highest annual average unemployment rate since 2006. McCain’s 90 percent support in the Senate for the unpopular Bush, a theme hammered by Obama, proved too much for the GOP nominee to overcome. Republican strategists said those troubles became more acute for McCain in Michigan after the Wall Street collapse, and both public and private polls showed him sliding. On Wednesday night, the campaign decided that the $1 million a week it was spending in Michigan wasn’t worth it with internal polls showing Obama approaching a double-digit lead. McCain’s decision didn’t go over well with at least some Michigan Republicans. "We want him in Michigan. We want him to hear our issues," said Mike Bishop, the top-ranking Republican in the state Legislature. --Liz Sidoti
