Barack Obama is serious about going where no Democrat has gone before -- or, to be precise, where no Democrat has gone in a very long time.

The presumptive Democratic nominee for president campaigned Thursday in North Dakota, a state that last backed the party's presidential ticket when it was headed by Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Campaigning in a state that has been so reliably Republican in presidential contests in recent decades that Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry barely acknowledged its existence -- or a desire to secure its three electoral votes -- Obama said, "I'm a firm believer that 90 percent of success is showing up and Democrats haven't been showing up in these places."

After his stop in Fargo, Obama's off to Montana for 4th of July celebrations in a state that has been only marginally friendlier to Democratic presidential contenders in recent years.

"If you look at the trends in many of these states, there are more and more independents who aren't tied to a political party and I want to make sure that we are reaching out to them," says Obama. "I think there is a possibility of a significant realignment politically in this election," he said. "Now is the time for us to have a conversation with all Americans, not just some Americans, about how we can pull together."

He is, of course, correct.

While old-school Democrat strategists still obsess about trying to win southern states where the party has been in rapid decline for decades, they have neglected Plains states that have always been more competitive than the party's so-called "brains" in Washington cared to admit.

North Dakota has two Democratic senators and a Democratic congressman, and the party is surging at the legislative level.

Montana has two Democratic senators, a Democratic governor, Democratic officials in most statewide offices and Democrats in charge of the legislature.

These are "red" states only on dated presidential election maps.

Down-ballot, North Dakota and Montana are federal blue and getting bluer. And a good many other western states are, at the very least, looking purple around the edges.

Translation: Barack Obama is not making a symbolic statement about his desire to reach out to all Americans around the July 4 holiday.

He is practicing smart politics -- the smart politics that DC strategists and pundits, who are busy trying to keep track of the deck chair shifts on John McCain's listing ship of a campaign, may only understand when the new presidential election maps are drawn in November.

Comments (23)

1. Obama said, "I'm a firm believer that 90 percent of success is showing up and Democrats haven't been showing up in these places."

   He maybe "practicing smart politics" but saying really dumb things!

   I want everyone to think how dumb Magic's "90 percent of success is showing up" really is.....and just how shallow a philosophy or approach this would be to solve long-standing difficulties.....like 44 yrs long!

   Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/03/2008 @ 6:09pm

2. This is a very smart strategy in another way: it forces McCain to now play defense in a lot more states than he would have if Obama ran as a typical Democrat. The money advantage suddenly becomes a lot sharper for Obama. Grandpa had better get his ass into some kind of gear or he'll be handing Obama the keys to the White House before even getting a shot off.

   I notice silence from The Nation about Grandpa majorly shaking up his campaign staff. Maybe they're waiting to see the implications?

   Posted by yutsano at 07/03/2008 @ 6:15pm

3. Repost --and the preemptive answer to the naysayers like Ibbleblibble and Metteyya is, "No, I don't expect Nader to win, but I do expect a shift in position by Obama if he sees his support slipping among progressives. Progressives shouldn't be so foolish as to give away our vote without any caveats whatsoever."

   SHOULD PROGRESSIVES VOTE FOR OBAMA?

   That is the question.

   Before you answer let's review some recent background.

   Barack Obama sailed into June with the political wind at his back and riding the crest of a tidal wave of enthusiastic support, especially among his left wing progressive base who were convinced that Obama would --however cryptic he might often come off-- eventually deliver with a more or less progressive agenda. After all, isn't it rather obvious after Dubya that the time is ripe for a whole new agenda? What other change should we "believe in" if not a genuine change in direction?

   We lined up eagerly with our money in hand to buy our tickets to the big race. Everyone knew that this was a moment for the history books. Big Brown was destined to go wire to wire, and we would all cash in our winnings and join the ticker tape parade to the sounds of triumphant music.

   Only it didn't happen.

   We were left standing with our losing tickets and tear streaked faces while the owners acted upset too. "Who is responsible for this travesty?", they said. It was the trainer, or the jockey, or perhaps the track conditions were not right.

   Here is where the analogy must break down. In politics we all know that the game is so often rigged just like boxing and horse racing, but in this case I put the blame for our disappointment firmly with the horse. How could he so callously raise our hopes, and then so unceremoniously dash them as soon as the nomination was his?

   This is the "old" politics we were promised would not be repeated.

   And one of the ironies of the moment is that more disappointment has perhaps been raised in the so-called mainstream media then in our progressive media.

   Philip Gailey, recently, in the St. Petersburg Times, "In ‘The Audacity of Hope,' Obama wrote: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." Someone is going to be disappointed. He can't be everything to everyone. If that's his idea of a new kind of politics, maybe he should just stick to the old politics he is beginning to master."

   Katrina vanden Heuvel said on Stefanopoulos (6/29, viewable online), "I'm shocked, …shocked that Obama has turned to the center."

   Really?

   Or is this just a sarcastic remark ala Casablanca? I'm not quite sure, but I'll assume, for her sake, that she really meant it –-after all, a sarcastic remark would be a slap in the face to Nation readers since The Nation endorsed Barack Obama. And if she is indeed shocked, then where is the appropriate anger to go along with it?

   I, for one, am grateful that George Carlin decided to die right at the moment when his words are most needed --and I'm not referring to the ones that have been played on television of late:

   "Forget the politicians, politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you.

   They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, they've long since bought and paid for the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They've got you by the balls.

   They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. We know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else... but they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard thirty fucking years ago....

   The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care, good honest hard working people, white collar, blue collar, doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard working people continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don't give a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you... at all...

   And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care, that's what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick being jammed up their assholes everyday.

   Because the owners of this country know the truth - it's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it."

   On June 3rd Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination, and today, July 3rd, is the anniversary of the ending of the battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Lincoln would deliver his Gettyburg Address the next day and singlehandedly redefine what the nation stood for. "…Our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

   This is the central tenet of the progressive movement, people. As Bill Moyers recently said at the Media Reform Conference, "Equality is the heart of Democracy."

   In just one short month Barack Obama with his completely unecessary, but entirely calculated flip-flops –on NAFTA, FISA, campaign finance reform, the Israeli-Palestinian issue etc…-- has essentially declared war on the very causes he has thus far pretended to champion.

   Obama appears to be just the latest act at Sea World. A black and white Orca performing incredible high flying tricks for his corporate masters.

   We've been duped, folks. And it's up to us to resist the behavior that the masters have calculated we will exhibit. You see, they've got us pegged with their sophisticated statistical algorithms, and sealed in a prison of numerical calculations. As right winger Hugh Hewitt said on Stefanopoulos, "Progressives will ride the bus no matter how hard right it turns."

   Will we, really?

   If Obama is a Big Brown of disappointment, I challenge all of us to tap our inner Black Beauty.

   It is up to us to show our corporate masters that we are not the emmasculated animals that they treat us as. Statistical calculations don't have the power to predict the impact of inspiration.

   At a time that our nation is facing its darkest moment at least since the Civil War, we need to find the courage to shirk the reins that have been so carefully crafted for us.

   If Barack Obama can't find it in himself to do the right thing and stand up for a progressive –and popular--agenda, then we need to do the right thing and vote for Ralph Nader.

   Don't fear the election of John McCain, fear instead the machinery that would have us all in shackles with our noses buried in slop-filled troughs of fattening propaganda.

   Should we vote for Obama?

   As a former Marine First Sergeant of mine was fond of saying, "Not only no, but fuck no!"

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/03/2008 @ 7:12pm

4. I really want to like Obama, truly I do. However, I still don't agree with a good portion of his policies.

   At the same time, things like this, and his willingness to actually speak candidly (or at least, I THINK it's candid) about various issues, is refreshing after enduring the past 8 years. To see politicians at least barely scraping the surface of the real world is wonderful. This still really doesn't cut it, but it is still leaps and bounds better than what we've had to deal with as a country.

   No matter who wins between McCain and Obama, things will still get worse. This is inevitable. But at least these two have something resembling the balls to admit a fuck up.

   Posted by madlib at 07/03/2008 @ 7:36pm

5. If Obama doesn't take his campaign to North Dakota, those North Dakotans will show up where you live!

   The lower realms of the bell curve, the Limbaugh black/white herd followers are going to gobble up big media/McCain's fear/flag 24/7 message.

   There's no other move to make. One has to go straight to the heart of these LV / Happy-types, Dixiecrats and Dixiecans. Go for the enemy flag.

   ALSO he needs to start dispatching Webb and Hillary into the land of pick-ups with Cheney/Bush 2004 stickers on them.

   Posted by winyahn at 07/03/2008 @ 8:53pm

6. I am 100% in favor of Obama campaigning in traditionally Republican states. Beyond any horse-race odds of his winning or losing those states, part of really intending to unify the public and the nation as much as possible is bothering to go to these places, meet the people who live there, understand them as well as possible, and make reasonable attempts to reach out to them.

   If Obama campaigns hard in North Dakota and loses, then so be it; at least he will have tried, and at least there who will have decided against him will not be able to say that he didn't even bother to show up and try.

   Posted by Zero at 07/03/2008 @ 8:55pm

7. Maskbeta: you really ought to stop talking about "purists" or whatever. Obama has made a few steps which overall are questionable not with respect to whether or not he is "pure" enough but whether or not he really intends to take the right the positions on important issues.

   All: Obama released a statement today indicating that he is going to work with other senators to strip retroactive immunity out of the FISA bill, FYI. What this means is that he is addressing the legitimate concerns of the public about justice for past abuses while trying to forge a compromise of some sort. That is not about "purity" or lack thereof that sort of move is about attempting to accomodate a broad range of concerns on the matter.

   Apparently pressuring Obama had some real result - he made an attempt to address one of the most egregious aspects of the current FISA bill as a result of the pressure on him. So it works, and nothing bad happened.

   Posted by Zero at 07/03/2008 @ 9:02pm

8. PS Maskbeta a recent poll, CNN I believe, put Nader at 6% nationwide, if he was running. I don't know the details of the poll, what its conditions were, but CNN doesn't normally trump ludicrous polls. Nader, for better and for worse, remains a factor in the race, though Nader needs to tread very carefully with a figure like Obama, who is not a red flag in the face of liberals like a Clinton.

   Posted by Zero at 07/03/2008 @ 9:04pm

9. I don't think Nader will end up being a factor in the end, and this is why: he's only on the ballot in six states so far. No doubt that number will probably increase, but if he can't even be voted on in all 50 states it's rather difficult to take Nader seriously.

   Also, I would encourage anyone who wants to vote for Nader to consider another option. Cynthia McKinney is just as much a progressive, plus it will get the Green Party much-needed vote recognition so they don't need to constantly struggle to get on ballots in the various states. If you want your vote to actually be meaningful, at least do that instead of wasting it on Ego Boy.

   Posted by yutsano at 07/03/2008 @ 9:17pm

10. yutsano: do you think that Hillary Clinton has an ego? Bill Clinton? Obama? McCain?

    Which national politician in the spotlight does not have a big ego?

    I grow rather tired of the "ego" insult. The truth is that, regardless of whether or not someone who feels strongly about progressive reform decides to vote for Nader, when that attack the public proponents of progressive reform, that person is really only attacking himself or herself. Part of being taken seriously is not putting down the figures who for better or for worse draw attention to issues you care about.

    Look at Bush: the man is an ass clown. But to rightist weirdos and the nationalist clown front, they won't even acknowledge the slightest weakness on the part of Bush. Why? Because for the longest time Bush was taking ground for them. And they're not interested in putting down whoever is trying to take ground for them.

    In Nader we have a figure with more real progressive reform efforts, successful and failed, under his belt, than most officeholders in the national Congress. Probably he deserves something other than being called "Ego Boy" and if you like having for example the Freedom of Information Act available to interested and serious parties you probably ought to show a little respect and gratitude. Start taking your own interests more seriously and quit putting down people who've forwarded your interests.

    Posted by Zero at 07/03/2008 @ 10:04pm

11. For all you doubters - I didn't vote for Al Gore (or any presidential candidate before him) because it was all the same make-believe, right? Now, do you really think we'd be in Iraq if Gore was president? Would we have pulled out of the Kyoto negotiations? Do you think Gore would have ignored the August 6, 2001 memo about Bin Laden wanting to attack us?

    Sometimes it matters who is president.

    And if that doesn't make you think, I 3 little words - The Supreme Court.

    As for Obama's campaigning in the red states - the groundwork was laid by Howard Dean, who wound up in the job he was perfect for.

    Posted by ramara at 07/03/2008 @ 10:10pm

12. Today Obama changed his view in Iraq to include whether or not Iraq is 'stable' before pulling troops. His view is now very close to what GW Bush has been saying.

    In a Christian magazine Obama said that the mental health of the mother should NOT be a consideration for late term (read second trimester in most cases) abortion.

    Obama is NOT playing smart. Everyone should know by now that if the choice is between a pretend republican and a real republican, the real republican wins.

    Posted by nameme at 07/04/2008 @ 01:36am

13. The pretty one doesn't have to do much to stay to the left of the wrinkly one. He has plenty of room to drift to the right, and capture the centrist votes, and the voters on the left won't dare to oppose him because the alternative is so ugly and wrinkly.

    But in the end it's all bollocks. Neither, for all their talk of change, has a snowball's hope in the face of the massive bureaucratic inertia that is the US state machinery. Neither will lift a finger against Big Business. Neither will really stop the war. Neither has the will or the capacity to tackle Climate Change beyond token efforts. Neither has the cash to pay the country's debts, or any reasonable plan for raising it. Neither is offering any real route out of recession/depression.

    Who will do well? Why, Big Business! And those top 1% are looking to increase their share...

    Posted by mikecope at 07/04/2008 @ 04:03am

14. I PREDICT BARRACK MILLHOUSE OSAMA WILL NOT PICK UP ONE RED STATE

    RED STATES DON'T VOTE FOR CLOSET RACIST ANTI-AMERICAN REV WRIGHT WANNABEES

    Posted by libzRfreaks at 07/03/2008 @ 6:03pm

    Your capslock key, is located between the tab and shift keys on the left side of your keyboard, it looks to be stuck. I would suggest some liquid air to clean it out and see if that helps. As for the stupidity that is your remark 1) reading books sometimes helps to jar the stupid out and 2) calm down, conservatives will get their chance to ruin the country yet again.

    I would say The Nation needs to do a better job of cleaning up the obvious trolls, but they can be fun to poke with sticks.

    Posted by Tzimisce at 07/04/2008 @ 12:55pm

15. A Birthday Gift to Candidate Obama, from that magical rag in the biggest Blue City! This editorial will be much talked about in coming days! Small donors of Magic: let us know how you feel after reading Obama's chief money collector on your usefulness.......:)))

    Editorial

    New and Not Improved

    Published: July 4, 2008

    Senator Barack Obama stirred his legions of supporters, and raised our hopes, promising to change the old order of things. He spoke with passion about breaking out of the partisan mold of bickering and catering to special pleaders, promised to end President Bush's abuses of power and subverting of the Constitution and disowned the big-money power brokers who have corrupted Washington politics.

    Now there seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings. First, he broke his promise to try to keep both major parties within public-financing limits for the general election. His team explained that, saying he had a grass-roots-based model and that while he was forgoing public money, he also was eschewing gold-plated fund-raisers. These days he's on a high-roller hunt.

    Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling. "We have not been able to have much of the senator's time during the primaries, so we have had to rely more on the Internet," she explained as she and her team busily scheduled more than a dozen big-ticket events over the next few weeks at which the target price for quality time with the candidate is more than $30,000 per person.

    The new Barack Obama has abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications companies that amounts to a sanctioned cover-up of Mr. Bush's unlawful eavesdropping after 9/11.......

    Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/04/2008 @ 2:32pm

16. Any new con repub conviction of a new, devolving and conflicted Obama-- should be treated similarly to when they put a horse saddle onto dinosaur bones in one of their museums to argue their anti-science theory that the world is only 5K old... Since, as in math, simply by putting two positive truths together, one cannot add them up to equal a negative number, unless one feels their audience is indeed that gullible.

    Is there any surprise with finally coming off of 12 years of a repub congressional majority rule and 8 years of a hsuB/cHeney admin, that our nation is in such a dire mess.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 07/04/2008 @ 3:51pm

17. Oh, my. Obama moved to the center!

    As if we had enough votes already to win this thing. A bit of cold hard reality: we Democrats didn't win seats in Congress in 2006, the GOP LOST them by over-reaching. The kind of over-reaching that comes from insisting that you remain "pure" in your position.

    Obama is essentially "cutting off the ring" (to use yet another tired boxing analogy) on Team McCain. We need 38-45% of the independents along with a really good turnout of our motivated base to win this thing. In 1989, Wilder had to indicate that as Governor he would still put the condemned to death, even though we all know that a disproportionate number of death row inmates are African-American. Everything that Obama has "backpeddled" on pales in comparison to that. This is an election, folks. Obama has to "disappoint" some of us to convince others that he will be President of ALL OF US.

    Posted by Egalitare at 07/04/2008 @ 9:28pm

18. Posted by Egalitare at 07/04/2008 @ 9:28pm

    Very well stated.

    The prospect of actually withdrawing two brigades a month, starting potentially soon!

    Of confronting the democracy choking media monopolies,

    Of slowing the corporate welfare hemorrhage,

    Of increased support for solar, wind, the Tokyo protocol...

    The day just might come.

    Posted by winyahn at 07/05/2008 @ 12:16am

19. Thank you Egalitare!

    In 1980, I campaigned for Barry Commoner but at the last minute voted for Carter because I didn't want to be responsible for electing Reagan president.

    I was 18.

    After Reagan won, the elder student progressives on my campus told us young'ns not to worry - that four years of Reagan would incite the working class into new socialist consciousness and sweep Reagan into the dustbin of history.

    For the first time in my adult life (neither a Clinton nor a Bush is on the ticket - but that's another story) the Center-Left has a chance to build a new electoral majority - much as Reagan did for the Right.

    Any progressive that doesn't jump on board with Obama this year, in my view is as irrelevant as those old lefties that promised that four years of Reagan would incite the working class to its nascent socialism.

    Dissappointment with Obama trumps a McCain presidency.

    Winning the presidency is about leading, governing, and broad-based appeal - and that is what Obama is trying to do. I am electing a President not a Messiah of Socialist purity.

    Posted by sfcadrew at 07/05/2008 @ 03:16am

20. JOHN, enough with the Blue State stuff already.

    One of my chief reasons for voting Barack Obama this year (which I will provided he does not pick Clinton or Gore a running mate)is a hope that he, as the leading edge of the next generation, will first replace the Dictator Bush and his lackeys, put some decency and balls into our agenda driven, do nothing Congress, and transform this nation into one entity again.

    People who maintain the division by references to "Red State/Blue State" "Neo-Con/Progressive" etc etc are part of the problem: That includes the Robert Scheers and apparently the John Nichols of the world AS WELL AS the Bill O'Reillys and Ann Coulters, and I've said this to them too.

    (Hey, as I write this, I just thought of a great name for our current Congress: The McClellan Congress. All you Civil War buffs out there, you get that, right? George McClellan, the great vacillator, the most indecisive of all the Union Generals, not stupid but never able to get off his ass and do something? Thats our Congress. The McClellan Congress)

    Posted by william.harry13 at 07/05/2008 @ 08:08am

21. Posted by sfcadrew at 07/05/2008 @ 03:16am

    "I was 18."

    How sad. Indoctrinated at 18 and been drinking the socialist kool-aid ever since.

    Posted by pontificus at 07/05/2008 @ 08:18am

22. B_kool_66 talks purty, but has a weak grip on historical fact. Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in November, not the 4th of July. They needed a few months to bury the numerous dead and prepare a worthy cemetery. As for pontificus, attacking anyone for their beliefs is surely the path of least resistance compared to defending Jughead Dumbya Botch's record.

    Posted by tcollette at 07/05/2008 @ 1:16pm

23. pontificus didn't even bother to read sfcadrew's comment before posting. sfcadrew's argument is a better argument against the "socialist kool-aid" than anything else in this thread.

    Posted by firehorse at 07/05/2008 @ 1:59pm