Travel Itineraries

The days dwindle down to a precious few for Barack Obama and John McCain. There is no longer time for superfluous campaign stops, for "image" or "spin" trips. Everything on the schedule meets a specific purpose, either a state to gain or a state to keep from losing. It's like a game of stud when you have to turn over your cards. There is no pretense or bluff left. All is revealed.

The two candidates' schedules for the final four days do reveal all about their respective priorities. Obama is completely on offense. McCain is on defense, and his path to victory has been reduced to one chance.

Today, Friday, Obama was in Iowa and Indiana. Saturday he plans to campaign in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri. Sunday he will spend the whole day in Ohio. Monday he will head southeast to finish up in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. The common denominator is that all these were states George W. Bush won in 2004 against John Kerry. Obama's entire agenda consists of taking "red" states away from the GOP. He is not concerned about defending any of the customarily "blue" democratic states. Not Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon or even Pennsylvania, where McCain is concentrating his own offensive effort.

The schedule tells you all you need to know about Obama's confidence and his campaign's assessment of the situation. He's not worried about having to defend anywhere. He is trying to run up the score on the other guy's turf. He is playing as though it's going to be a blowout. As if to emphasize that, Obama television commercials have suddenly begun appearing in three new states: North Dakota, Georgia and, for the first time, in Arizona. Yes, McCain's home state, where four polls out in the past three days give McCain an average lead of only four percent.

Here is McCain's itinerary. He spent all day today in Ohio. Tomorrow, Saturday, he will concentrate on Virginia and Pennsylvania. On Sunday he will be in New Hampshire. Then he wraps up on Monday with a coast-to-coast marathon that may include stops in as many as seven states: Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. This schedule lays bare McCain's thinking. His first priority is to defend Bush states where he is already behind. That's where he's spending the lion's share of his time. Then he is taking his best shot at the two states he figures he might be able to turn from blue to red, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

The problem for him is that even if he wins both of them, and all seven "tossup" states (Montana, North Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia), he will still be 18 electoral votes short of victory. He'll have to win Ohio too, or Virginia and Colorado, or all three of Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. In other words, McCain will have to run the table of close states, and then improve on that by taking at least three others where Obama currently has at least a five-point lead, one of which must be Pennsylvania.

McCain's predicament is somewhat like John Kerry's four years ago, where everything rode on his ability to win Ohio. When he did not the election was over. McCain faces the same kind of problem, except much worse. This time McCain has to win Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where FiveThirtyEight.com rates Obama's chances to win each state at 99%. And then Ohio. And also Florida, Indiana, Missouri and all the rest without losing in any of them. To return to our poker example, his only chance lies in drawing to the equivalent of an inside straight, not once, but three times in a row. That is what the candidates' itineraries tell us.