Washington IndependentSAN DIEGO -- With a
Zogby online pollfinding Sen. Barack Obama holds a narrow lead over Sen. John McCain in Arizona, McCain may step up his campaigning in his home state. McCain often spends weekends unwinding at his property in Sedona. Though his campaign often informs reporters of his weekend activities -- like his recent post-church visits on Sunday to a Veteran’s Administration hospital in Phoenix and an Arizona National Guard base -- they are rarely open to the press.
This weekend, however, was different. McCain visited his Southwest regional campaign headquarters in Phoenix -- where he gave his local supporters a pep talk. The event was your basic photo-op -- it was open to the press, but he did not take questions. Shortly before taking off for San Diego this morning, McCain, and his wife, Cindy, dropped by The Eggery, a diner in central Phoenix, which is "decked out in French country décor," according to the pool report. There, he greeted patrons and met with a group of local citizens over breakfast before taking questions from the press pool. Topics included: Obama's op-ed article in this morning's New York Times, offshore drilling and the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae crisis.............
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Meanwhile, there's yet another story about the Obama campaigning building
massive ground games in another red state that McCain cannot afford to lose:
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is off to a more aggressive campaign in Iowa than John McCain, despite the Republican having clinched the nomination three months earlier than his rival.
Obama has 15 campaign offices open and staffed in Iowa, while McCain is still plotting where to locate about half as many.
...In the past two presidential elections, few states were determined by narrower margins than Iowa. A difference of 4,000 votes put the state in Democrat Al Gore's column in 2000 and roughly 10,000 put it in the Republican George Bush's four years later.