OH!!! Bama

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

A new Public Policy Polling survey(pdf) finds Sen. Barack Obama begins the general election in Ohio with a double digit lead over John McCain, 50% to 39%.

Fully half -- not a mere plurality -- and double digits!

This is a huge change from more recent polls that showed the narrowest of margins in Obama's favor.

Yesterday much was made over the offhand comments the despicable Ape Pee highlighted (and of course are available elsewhere from more responsible and less rapacious news outlets) that Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe told doners, "the Illinois senator can still become America’s first black president even if he loses the two key battleground states of Florida and Ohio."

While the Lizard Brains take this to mean Obama is conceding the states Bush stole in the last two elections, if reported fairly and read correctly, the campaign is saying that these big swing states "will not be considered must wins by themselves, but only part of a conprehensive plan to compete in more states."

It's called the 50 State Strategy -- you might have heard of it.

Meanwhile, from the watch what they do, not what they say Department: "Obama Beefing up Florida Efforts, Padding Out Staff." They're also doing some serious community organizer training here in Ohio, where unlike Florida where he didn't campaign, he has an organization in place.

Roper, meet dopes.

[Caveat on the PPP Poll. Inside the numbers, the poll skews heavily towards Democratic Party identification, 55%, 30% GOP. Even then however, Obama gets 10% of self-described Republicans. Worrisome is McCain capturing 17% of self-described Democrats. The good news is that Obama wins those who don't consider themselves part of either major party 45% to 32%. Any way you cut it, this is a major improvement from the last time PPP polled Ohio in March which indicated McCain winning Ohio by 8 points.]