Obama in Fargo

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama visited Fargo last week, a day before the Independence Day holiday. Local news affiliates heavily covered the event because it is unusual for a presidential candidate to visit North Dakota during the general election campaign. Our state has a scant three electoral votes and we are pretty solidly Republican when it comes to presidential elections. So, Republicans take us for granted and Democrats write us off.

As a result, local media made a big deal about the visit and speculated that Obama was here because he believes the state may be in play this time around. The reality is Obama does not believe the state may go Democratic in November and not one of our local media outlets reported on the real motivation for Obama's visit.

He has an amazing fundraising apparatus and he plans to use it against Republican rival Senator John McCain by forcing McCain to spend money in states where he normally wouldn't need to. So, Obama is visiting and buying ads in North Dakota, Montana and other normally right-leaning states to force McCain to do the same. McCain uses his relatively fewer resources protecting his "home turf" and Obama can outspend him in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida.

Maybe Obama believes he can swing staunch Republican states his way and maybe he's right. But that seems unlikely, unless an Obama tidal wave sweeps the country and he achieves a Reagan-Mondale or Nixon-McGovern margin of victory. Absent that, his "red-state strategy" is just a shrewd use of resources.