In his Washington Post article this morning implicitly criticizing Condoleeza Rice for departing from “the long-standing precedent that the national security adviser try to avoid overt involvement in the presidential campaign,” WaPo reporter Glenn Kessler writes that
Rice has traveled across the country making speeches in key battleground states, including Oregon, Washington, North Carolina and Ohio. In the next five days, she also plans speeches in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida.
Is the WaPo privy to some secret polls that list Washington and North Carolina among the “key battleground states”? If not, what are Kessler and his editor smoking?
At the risk of becoming annoying, is your contention that these states are not up-for-grabs or that they are not key?
According to http://2.004k.com/trend/ (which I selected only because it was the easiest for me to find via google), all of the states listed are within the margin of error.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-battleground04-frameset.html has every one of those states except North Carolina as a battleground state.
Craig – I of course could be wrong, but it is my impression that most of the leading polling organizations do not regard either Washington or North Carolina as battleground states. Rasmussen, for example, lists 16 battleground states, but Wash. and N.C. are not among them. Real Clear Politics does list Washington (but not North Carolina) as one of 18 battleground states, but I believe both campaigns and most pundits and pollsters long ago conceded it to Kerry.
UPDATE
USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP lists neither Wash. nor N.C. among battleground states.
To further buttress your claim, the Washington Post does not list either Washington or North Carolina in its list of the 14 swing states – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/elections/2004/electoral-college/electoral-college.html.
I’d hazard that Kessler was too casual in his terminology. Although most of these states are recognized as battleground states, some are states which are fairly certain to go one or the other but where the margin is still not overwhelming.
but Wash. and N.C. are not among them. Real Clear Politics does list Washington (but not North Carolina) as one of 18 battleground states, but I believe both campaigns and battery most pundits and pollsters long ago conceded it to Kerry.