Could Obama Flip North Carolina?

Mori Dinauer doesn’t think so:

although North Carolina went for Jimmy Carter in ‘76, I think we can safely consider that an aberration (before that it was 1964 as well). Now it’s true that voters are registering Democratic in record numbers in places like North Carolina, but this doesn’t necessarily point to a red-blue shift in these states. Rather, it seems that Democrats, or Democatic-leaning voters are excited about their choice, and that means high turnout and registration. But the jury’s still out on whether all these new potential Democratic votes will be enough to flip these states in the general election. Also read Holly Yeager’s take from last week on the main site.

Dinauer is certainly right that Democratic enthusiasm and registration in traditionally red states like North Carolina and Indiana is quite high, but I think she’s wrong to totally take North Carolina off the map. Rasmussen released a poll on April 12th showing McCain and Obama in a dead heat at 47% each and McCain leading Clinton by 11 points. And although this could be attributed to the attention Obama is showering on North Carolina, it still indicates that even if Obama can’t win in red states like North Carolina or Virginia, he can still make McCain fight for them, thus spreading his resources thinner and making it so he can’t spend as much time in swing states. Spreading the map liket his can be a valuable asset - just imagine if Kerry had been able to spend all the resources that he put into Pennsylvania at the end of the 04 campaign into Ohio. Clinton, while being stronger in big swing states like Ohio and Florida, doesn’t have the ability to even feign at expanding the map like Obama can.