Obama pulling ads in Red States

Fox News:

Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has put the brakes on ads that were running in seven states carried by the GOP in the 2004 presidential election, FOX News has learned.

Of the seven states — including Alaska, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota — Florida and Virginia are considered key battlegrounds this year. Obama’s decision to stop advertising in those states is raising eyebrows.

Aides to Obama told FOX News that the changes are related to the convention next week but they wouldn’t discuss the specifics of their ad strategy.

When Obama’s campaign took over the Democratic Party earlier this year, it embraced Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, which is aimed at courting Democrats nationwide. The strategy has generated controversy, though, because many Democrats say it wastes money in states where they have no chance of winning.

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Even with his prodigious fund raising, Obama can't really afford a 57 state strategy or even a 50 state one. It is also recognition that he is not effecting "change" in the voting patterns in those states. It probably is also in recognition that his totals are eroding in some blue states and he may need everything he has to hold on.

This McClatchy story gives some of the details on his lack of support in the South.

Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain enjoys a 16-point lead — 51 percent to 35 percent — among Southern voters over rival Democratic U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, a new poll by Winthrop University and ETV shows.

And, the further into the South you go, the larger McCain's lead grows, the poll of likely voters in 11 Southern states shows.

Likely voters in the Deep South — those in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — preferred McCain by a 25-point margin, 56 percent to 31 percent.

Southern voters said what they want most in a president is honesty, experience and shared values. Southern voters rated McCain ahead of Obama in each of those categories.

McCain's strongest support comes from white working-class Southerners — who favor him by a 34-point margin — and white evangelicals — who favor the Arizonan by 54 percentage points.

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I don't think ads are going to change that many minds. The margins are just not close enough to support spending in those states.