Boeing machinists Bob Merritt, and Danny Maez, right, join a large
crowd at a government hearing on unemployment insurance reform
that is key to keeping Boeing jobs in Washington state.

From that map of a black, bruised and bleeding America, a savvy political strategist could devise a way to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win back the White House.
 
Highly probable Democratic states – West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington – support Democratic presidential candidates more than 60 percent of the time. They have paid the price these past three years. Their official unemployment rates are 5.9, 5.4 and 7.0 percent respectively.

Add in hardcore Democratic states like Minnesota, Hawaii Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, that strategist starts with 131 electoral votes.
 
Marginal Democratic states like Maine, Michigan and Oregon look as if George Foreman pummeled them with economic punches. These are 50-50 states normally. Half the time the Democrats win; half the time the Republicans do. But with 5.1, 7.6 and 7.6 percent jobless rates they are ripe for a Democratic sweep.

Along with Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa and Vermont, those marginal Democratic states produce another 48 electoral votes. That brings the strategist’s in-the-bag count to 179 – just 91 votes shy of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

Marginal Republican states like Arkansas, California, Illinois, Ohio and Tennessee are blotched with black, purplish and red counties. Normally, these states tend to go Republican, except when economic times are tough. And times are tough.

The statewide unemployment rate is above 6.2 percent in Arkansas, California and Illinois. Those three states have trended Democratic since 1988, and contain 82 of the 91 electoral votes needed for victory.

In Ohio and Tennessee, the statewide unemployment rate exceeds 5.5 percent. Win either state and George Bush is history.

And yet, even solidly Republican states like North Carolina, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi, all with unemployment rates above six percent and splotches of joblessness covering millions of acres, might find JOBS! a compelling reason to vote Democratic.


Shelving The Battleground States
Can the core states of the Confederacy find common ground with the Union’s most steadfast states? Maybe not, but it’s worth a try.

North and south of the Mason-Dixon line, hard work is a deeply ingrained value. Red, white and blue collar Americans may disagree on many issues. But they all know what it takes to keep the American Dream alive: hard work.

And that’s what is so different about a JOBS! strategy. It bonds employed and unemployed Americans together. It reaches across regional, cultural, racial and religious divides. It gives folks something to be for: JOBS!

A JOBS! strategy focuses message, media and manpower on a single issue – no, the defining issue – of this presidential campaign. In doing so, it shelves the old battleground state strategy.
 
That battleground state strategy was devised when the Democratic presidential candidates had few resources and lacked a single issue that cut as deeply as JOBS! It was designed as a way to sneak up on an unsuspecting and over-confident foe – President George Herbert Walker Bush.

And yet, that battleground state strategy, run successfully in 1992 and 1996 but thwarted in 2000, offers slim advantage now.
 
In fact, it reminds one of Saddam Hussein’s failed strategy of shrinking the battlefield by withdrawing his forces into an even smaller ring around Baghdad. Against a powerful foe, that strategy produced only a smaller, more target-rich battlefield.

Instead of concentrating on fewer and fewer states, the JOBS! strategy targets every state and county with significant unemployment rates.
 
The objective is to increase turnout next November from 100 million to 115 million Americans. That 15 percent increase, drawn from the family, friends and neighbors of the unemployed, shifts the overall electorate decisively towards the Democratic nominee.

 

Cover Story: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5