Obama, McCain camps reveal Colorado strategy

Democrat Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is targeting Independents in Colorado’s suburbs, Latinos in the southern part of the state, and voters in Republican-dominated areas most Democratic candidates write off, a top strategist said today.

“You can’t simply compete where Democrats have done traditionally well. You have to compete in all areas,’’ said Robert Gibbs, senior strategist for the Illinois senator’s campaign. “It’s a microcosm of a lot of different states where you have important constituencies, you have growing suburbs but you also have red areas that Democrats have traditionally neglected.

“Changing the score of those areas could also change the outcome,’’ of who wins the election,’’ Gibbs added.

Gibbs spoke about Obama’s approach to Colorado at a breakfast with reporters. He discussed a number of topics, including the economy, congressional negotiations over the economic bailout bill, and whether the first presidential debate will happen Friday.

In Colorado, Obama is talking economics to attract voters, and the campaign is registering voters.

“Changing the makeup of the electorate is key to changing the outcome of the election,’’ Gibbs said.

The campaign believes it can get voters to the polls, using people in communities to talk with other people in the same communities, he said.

Republican John McCain's political director Mike DuHaime on Wednesday said Republicans expect to win Colorado.

“There is certainly a commonality between Sen. McCain being from Arizona, understanding Western issues, the same with Gov. Palin,’’ DuHaime said. “That commonality, that understanding of those issues is one that is going to come across.”

Both campaigns are targeting the Latino populations in Colorado and the West, he said at a lunch with reporters. McCain’s campaign also is putting resources in the Denver Metro area.

Democrats have won statewide races in Colorado are moderates, DuHaime said.

“If you look at Senator Obama, his record certainly doesn’t show that,’’ and Obama hasn’t ever bucked the interests of his party, DuHaime said. “I think that will ultimately resonate over time.”

The McCain camp is ramping up voter outreach, he said, last week calling or knocking on doors of more than one million homes throughout the country. The Republican party's ability to reach voters is better than it was in 2004 or 2006, he said.

"What we've got are battle-tested volunteers who have done it before,'' DuHaime said.

At today’s breakfast, Obama strategist Gibbs said he believes Friday's debate will happen as planned.

The commission running the presidential debates “has not talked to us in any way about changing what is planned to happen Friday,’’ Gibbs said.

“We’re prepared to take questions from (moderator) Jim Lehrer without John McCain,’’ Gibbs said of the Republican presidential candidate.

He later said of McCain “I think he’s going to come to the debate.”

Gibbs tried to lower expectations for Obama’s performance, saying that debates are not his forte and that McCain has “staked his candidacy on 26 years of Washington experience on foreign policy.”

In answering questions, Obama “sometimes takes 60 seconds to clear his throat,” Gibbs said. “He tends to get a question, describe the problem, tell a story, give some solutions.”

DuHaime made a similar effort Wednesday, saying that debates aren’t McCain’s preferred format for reaching voters.

"We know that Senator Obama is a phenominal debater,'' he said. "Senator McCain does not have that same reputation as a debater. But I think is message will come across."

The lunch was held prior to McCain announcing that he was stopping his campaign to work on the economic bailout package. Asked if the effort would fail without McCain’s support, DuHaime said that “Senator McCain’s clearly a leader that folks look to, but there are 100 U.S. senators, 435 members of Congress, they’ve all got to vote the way they feel they need to vote.”

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