Detroit Breakdown

The McCain campaign is giving up on Michigan.

The news that John McCain's campaign is abandoning its efforts in Michigan -- first reported by Jonathan Martin at Politico -- is the latest in a series of negative developments for the Republican ticket over the last two weeks.

The GOP had seen Michigan as a possible state to steal.

Although Democrats have dominated in both presidential and other statewide contests in the Wolverine State over the last few cycles (the Democratic nominee
for president has carried Michigan in each of the last four elections), Republicans believed that McCain was the candidate to change that.

The differences in how their campaigns are financed allow Barack to spend more recklessly than McCain.

What that means in practical terms is that Obama can pump money into a wider palette of iffy states and hope for results. While Obama has pulled back in places like Georgia and Alaska, his decision to continue to plunge huge amounts of money into Florida has, of late, begun to pay dividends as polls have shown him climbing into a lead in the Sunshine State.

McCain can't allow this to create a perception that his campaign is unravelling.

Third, and this is the most potentially dangerous for McCain, the decision to pull out of Michigan may be painted by the media as a sign the entire campaign is going south. "In the 24 hour nonstop news world we live in, the act of pulling out will actually be harmful to his candidacy not only in Michigan but elsewhere," predicted one well-connected Republican operative familiar with the politics of the Wolverine State.

The McCain campaign held a conference call with political director Mike DuHaime and senior adviser Greg Strimple to argue that the Arizona Senator retains a viable path to 270 electoral votes.

Their map: Win six toss up states -- Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio -- that have traditionally favored Republicans and hold the solidly GOP states to get to 260 electoral votes. Then find 10 more electoral votes in some combination of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

The pullout from Michigan reflects just how quickly the focus shifted to McCain's biggest area of vulnerability - a struggling economy - and with that shift, a reminder to voters just how much they want to be done with the GOP.

The Kwame Effect

The Mayor of Detroit is going off to prison for a host of transgressions surrounding his desire to keep his affair with an underling quiet. Could this hurt Barack?

Long before sex, lies and texting caused Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to plead guilty to two felonies and resign on Thursday, he and Barack Obama shared a warm man-hug before a huge Motown crowd.

I met Kilpatrick once a few years ago, and there's nothing about him that reads like Barack. A flashy-dressing black man who is big enough that you think he might have been a professional athlete, he is loud and urban in contrast to Barack's soft sophistication. Barack embraced Kwame while he was giving a speech in Detroit.

But while that speech gave Obama green street-cred, his praise of Kilpatrick as a "great mayor" who will do "astounding things for many years to come" backfired.

That hug is now a TV commercial, and it could impact the race in swing-state Michigan, where Barack presumably loses the effective utilization of Kilpatrick's political machinery.

But beyond the mechanical breakdown, Kilpatrick's salacious, headline-commandeering controversy has inflamed the racial tensions that have riven this region.

Detroit is 80 percent black.

Among the Kilpatrick die-hards in Detroit—still a significant minority—Obama could be viewed as a traitor. "People are upset he waited until the last minute and then piled on," says political consultant and Kilpatrick supporter Adolph Mongo.

John Kerry won Michigan by 3 poins in 2004. Will Barack's chances of repeating for the Democrats be damaged by the scandal?

To comfortably keep Michigan Blue, as it has been since 1992, Mongo contends Obama needs a near-record turnout in the city of Detroit, on the order of 60 percent of the registered voters. By comparison, when John Kerry took Michigan by 3 points in 2004, just more than 40 percent of Detroit's registered voters showed up at the polls. Without Kilpatrick around to oil Detroit's political machine, getting out the vote will be difficult, says Mongo.

As of mid-August, the Real Clear Politics average of polls showed Barack leading in Michigan by 4.3 points. But this ad:

produced by the conservative Freedom's Defense Fund and soon going into heavy rotation on Detroit TV stations, shows Kilpatrick's mug shot, as the 10 felonies he faced scroll down the screen while Obama says, "I'm grateful to call him a friend." The ad ends ominously with the line: "You should know who Obama's friends are."

Tax Man

McCain's new ad, called Tax Man, focuses on Barack's economic plan. Notice how they use the crowd again, and the chants of Obama, to turn Barack's excitement quotient into a negative by linking it to the superficial, celebrity aspect of Barack's support.

The spot opens with a criticism of Obama that has become a refrain from the McCain campaign in recent weeks.

“Celebrity? Yes,” says an announcer, as the spot opens on cheering crowds at an Obama rally. “Ready to lead? No.”