NYT, pg1, lead: Already, Obama and McCain Map Fall Strategies

[DeepModem Mom]

Already, Obama and McCain Map Fall Strategies
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY
Published: May 11, 2008

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups — including independent voters and Latinos — and about a dozen states where they think the contest is likely to be decided this fall, campaign aides said.

In a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign, the two sides said Saturday that they would be open to holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer....

Even before Mr. Obama fully wraps up the Democratic presidential nomination, he and Mr. McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are starting to assemble teams in the key battlegrounds, develop negative advertising and engage each other in earnest on the issues and a combustible mix of other topics, including age and patriotism.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, will spend the next week delivering a series of speeches on global warming, evidence of his intention to battle Mr. Obama for independent voters, a group the two men have laid claim to. Those voters tend to recoil from hard-edged partisan politics, and presumably would be receptive to the kind of bipartisan forum that Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama seemed open to on Saturday.

Clearly concerned that questions about such things as his association with his former pastor had damaged his standing with independents, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, is likely to embark on a summertime tour intended to highlight the life story that was once central to his appeal. Preliminary plans include a stop in Hawaii, his birthplace, and a major address there at Punchbowl Cemetery, where his maternal grandfather, who fought in World War II, is buried.

Mr. Obama’s campaign is firing up voter-registration efforts and sending troops to Ohio and Pennsylvania, states that he lost in the primaries but that his aides said he must win to capture the White House. Mr. McCain’s advisers said they had tracked Mr. Obama’s struggles with blue-collar voters there and would open campaign headquarters in both states in early June. Beyond that, aides to the two men said Latino voters would be central to victory in a swath of Western states now viewed as prime battlefields, including Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico....Mr. McCain is looking first to states where President Bush narrowly lost in 2004 and where Mr. Obama lost primaries, starting with New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Mr. Obama is looking to states where he won caucuses and primaries — including some, like Virginia, that have been solidly Republican in recent presidential elections — as well as others where he has organizations in place.

And the two sides have produced television advertisements that will be rolled out as soon as the Democratic contest is officially resolved. These advertisements are directed less at promoting themselves than at undercutting their opponents....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us/politics/11strategy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1210522040-bLwD/bcrOt1d1A2l2KdJ6A&pagewanted=all