Candidates fight to protect leads: Metropolitan centres are being ingored by the presidential candidates as they plough their resournces into key battleground states, writes Conor O'Clery, North American Editor.
When the American Founding Fathers set up the Electoral College, their aim was to elect a president who would benefit the majority of the country, not just by population but geographically. In other words the candidates would not just spend their time making promises to the people of the big urban centres, mainly on the east and west coasts, but would also have to trawl for votes in what the city elites like to call fly-over country.
But in this election it has been the big metropolitan centres with their mega-populations that have been ignored by the candidates.
What is the sense in John Kerry campaigning in New York city or Los Angeles when New York State and California are solidly Democratic, or of George Bush campaigning in Houston or Dallas when Texas is firmly in the Republican camp? Few people in these places have seen a campaign rally or an election ad on state television. They have been ignored and practically disfranchised.
All the huge amounts of money and the phenomenal energy generated by the intensely-fought 2004 campaign has gone into a small number of battleground states. This is because the arithmetic of the electoral college has determined that that is where the electoral college vote will be decided.
There are 538 electors in the electoral college. To win the White House, a candidate needs to secure 270 electoral college votes.
There are a number of states solidly for or leaning towards President Bush and a number firmly in the camp of Senator John Kerry or leaning that way. According to the latest polls, Bush has 26 states with a total of 222 electoral votes, and Kerry has 16 states plus the District of Columbia with a total of 211 votes.
This leaves the candidates fighting over eightswing states with a total of 105 electoral college votes (many analysts regard some states in the Bush and Kerry camps as too close to call). Bush needs 48 of these electoral votes to win and Kerry 59, giving the Democratic challenger a bigger hill to climb.
The swing states with the most votes are Florida with 27, Pennsylvania with 21 and Ohio with 20. Here is where there is hand-to-hand combat. The Bush and Kerry campaigns, with their hundreds of advisers, strategists, aides, secret service personnel, caterers and media hordes, have trampled through practically every town and hamlet to rally votes in these three states which all at one time or another have been called 'ground zero' or the 'epicentre' of the election.
The Kerry strategy has been focused on securing Pennsylvania, which backed Al Gore four years ago, and winning either Ohio or Florida, both of which fell to Mr Bush in 2000. He must get two of the big three to have a hope of winning.
A Gallup poll yesterday astonishingly showed Kerry with small leads in Ohio and Florida, where Bush has been in front all along, and trailing in Pennsylvania, where Kerry had been enjoying solid leads. Other polls last week showed the reverse.
No Republican has won the White House in nearly a century without taking Ohio, so a loss for the Bush-Cheney ticket there would be a phenomenal success for Kerry.
In 2000 Gore pulled out his resources out of Ohio late in the campaign assuming the state was lost, only to see the Bush holding on by a mere 3.5 per cent.
The Democrat must also watch for ambushes elsewhere. He must protect his lead in Michigan, which Gore won by five points, and New Jersey, which Gore won by 15 points. The two states should not even be in play but have been targeted by Mr Bush for late campaigning as they began to look vulnerable. Kerry must also win at least two of three states that should be firmly in his camp but are not - Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, all of which went to Al Gore in 2000.
A Wall Street Journal poll yesterday showed late trends for Kerry in all three states. A wild card in Minnesota is Ralph Nader who is drawing only 1 per cent support in most states but could benefit here from the mid-western state's quirky independence.
Then there are the eccentricities on the electoral map, which could prove hugely important if there is a repeat of the nail-biter of four years ago and the count comes down to a handful of electoral college votes.
One is Arkansas. Republicans always assumed Arkansas would be loyal to Bush, who won it by five percentage points in 2000 but the race there is a dead heat and former President Bill Clinton has campaigned in Little Rock to try to spring a surprise.
Then there is Hawaii. The Kerry-Edwards campaign was blithely confident of keeping strongly-Democratic Hawaii, with its four electoral votes. But after polls there showed a dead heat, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to the Pacific Ocean state on Sunday to rally partisans. (How the travelling press wish Hawaii had been in play all along!)
Other states have become pawns in the giant electoral chess game. Last night, on his way home to Texas, Mr Bush stopped off to campaign in New Mexico, which he hopes to prise from the Democrats to counter a possible grab by Kerry for New Hampshire, which Bush won four years ago by 1.7 points.
The Bush campaign is also worried about Colorado, which it won by 8 per cent in 2004 and which Kerry has been courting with six visits during the campaign to try to hedge against losing Michigan. Nevada is also not a long shot for anyone looking to bet on a Republican state going Democratic, as a recent poll showed Kerry behind by only two points. Most Americans are tired of the electoral vote system and for decades have indicated in polls that they would welcome a change.
If the American presidential election were based on the popular vote, said Karl Rove, Mr Bush's political adviser, candidates would be spending all their time in New York and Los Angeles and population centres where they could reach the most voters. They would rarely be seen in rural or small-town middle-America. The Florida debacle renewed interest in the idea of switching to the popular vote, which Al Gore won in 2000 while losing the electoral vote.
Republicans have shown little interest in the idea, but that could change if - as is possible - George Bush wins the popular vote this time and loses the electoral college vote.