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Opinion: John McCain’s focus on Iowa turned out to be pointless

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The Ticket, more than a month ago, raised a question many others eventually posed -- why was John McCain campaigning in Iowa?

It didn’t seem to make much sense in late September, with poll after poll showing Barack Obama with a solid lead there.

True, President Bush, after losing Iowa in 2000, had won it in his 2004 reelection bid. But since then, the state Democratic Party had staged a comeback. And more importantly, Obama seemed to have a strong hold on the state, which began in early 2007 when he started organizing for the Iowa Democratic caucuses.

It was his victory in those caucuses that set him on the path that will culminate in his presidential election later tonight, when the three West Coast states start reporting their vote.

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The McCain camp, though, kept insisting that their own polling and the word from Iowa Republicans showed that the state remained competitive.

And so McCain kept dropping in on the state throughout October.

As it turned out, it was time wasted. As the independent surveys had indicated, the state was a slam-dunk for Obama. The moment the polls closed there tonight, every network reported that he would carry its 7 electoral votes.

-- Don Frederick

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