Obama’s War Chest Drives a 50-State Strategy – NYTimes.com

Less than three weeks after securing the Democratic nomination, Mr. Obama is already dispatching paid staff members to all 50 states, an unusual move by the standards of modern presidential campaigns so often fought in just a contained group of contested territories.

His aides and advisers said they did not believe Obama necessarily has a serious chance of winning in many of the traditionally Republican states, but rather that he can at least draw Mr. McCain into spending time and money there while also swelling the rolls of Democratic voters and supporting other Democrats on the ballot.

This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind the day after the 2004 Presidential elections, kind of like Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy, but with teams of gay couples touring the country in Winnebagoes, distributing fabulousness, demonstrating tolerance, and giving out loves of banana bread.

Imagine people in previously Red states feeling emboldened and empowered to vote Democratic, rather than stay home and assume that there wasn’t any point in voting for the losing side. I suspect that there are a lot more people willing to vote for Democrats in Republican bastion states than we’ve been led to believe. Those “Dumb States” aren’t as think as we dumb they are.

Yes, we can make a difference – and the sweet part is forcing Republican pols to fire up their creaky machines in states where they haven’t had to work too hard to ensure that only the “right” people vote the “right” way.