Electability As Much About “Where” as “Who”

From my new NBCLatino piece:

While Republicans each claim the mantle of electability, determining who is most likely to beat Barack Obama is as much about the path to victory each party pursues as it is about the candidate they send down that path. The Obama brain trust has laid out five different yellow brick roads to securing 270 electoral votes. There’s a Florida path; a Western path that includes Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Iowa; a Midwestern path that includes Ohio and Iowa, a Southern path that includes North Carolina and Virginia; and an Expansion path that brings states like Arizona into play.

Which approach the Obama campaign chooses hinges, in part, on who they are running against. A Gingrich nomination makes a Southern path less appealing. A Romney nomination likely steers Democrats away from Michigan. Theoretically, Republicans should be able to build a path to victory around their nominee, whoever their nominee is. As one Republican operative told me, “I don’t think it’s a big secret that Obama’s paths to victory are our paths too.”

Full article here.