Which of the following states should Obama contest now:

[Mr.Phips]

I wish he would contest Georgia, just to see what it's like to live in a swing state.

But he won't. Still, I think we'll be surprised to see how close the race is in Georgia.

There are pretty much no competitive downballot races in Georgia.  It would be a waste of resources. 

[Mr.Phips]

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Terrible strategy. Romney does better among whites. Especially northern whites.

He'd be better off campaigning in AR and MS which is where he should be campaigning.

Unfortunately, the MS Democratic Party took yet another Senate race off, so Obama would be better off campaigning in a state with a real race.

100% agreed. 

I think Arizona is the best state for him to go into at this point.  If he wins there, Carmona almost certainly wins the Senate race. 

[Mr.Phips]

Reelection for Obama is far from certain at this point. He is not leading this race by 10 points. He is leading by 4. That is great for him, but that doesn't make him a winner in November yet.

If he is leading by 5 in two weeks (after the first debate and the September job numbers), it might be different.

That's what people said October 2008 when I suggested Obama start shifting resources downballot and nobody listened and Obama ended up getting 365 electoral votes, wasting a lot of EV's in the process and Democrats did far worse than anyone expected in the House.  A campaign stop for Darcy Burner, Jim Esch, Bob Roggio, and Dan Seals would have made the Democratic victory complete that year.  LBJ understood this in 1964 and put his money to use trying to get a huge House majority so that he could pass the Great Society programs.