John McCain has handed the State of Michigan to Barack Obama. He is closing offices, pulling staff and canceling adds.  Michigan is one of the swing states.  If it were in Obama’s column, it would be a non story.  But, with Obama leading in both the national polls and in the more important Electoral College vote, McCain needs every swing state he can get.

The latest poll on Michigan has Obama up by 10%. Usually, if a candidate leads by 10% or more in two or more consecutive polls, the state will at least be considered leaning towards him or her as the case may be. In the poll right before this one, Obama led by 13%.  One was taken on Sept 29th and one on Sept 22nd. Obama led in all the polls before this, but only one was at 10%, the rest were not above 7%.  So yes, pollsters would have awarded the state to Obama.

But for a candidate to concede a state, which is what he is doing even though nothing counts until election day, sends out a message to the voters.  The message that he is not that confident, no matter what he says.  Add to this the fact that he is putting more effort into Indiana, another swing state, leads us to believe that he is not so sure here either.

Over the past 10 elections, Michigan has gone Democratic five time and Republican five times, but four of the times it went Democratic were the last four elections. Mc Cain lost the Michigan primary to Romney. This might have been a state where having Romney as the Vice Presidential would have been a help. Indiana has voted Republican in all ten. And McCain was the primary winner in Indiana. Could be an indication that not all of Romney’s supporters are supporting McCain. Maybe choosing a rival for the nomination is not a bad idea after all.

Now it does appear that McCain would have a better chance in Indiana and we are going to keep an eye on the state to see if McCain’s strategy pays off.  If he has trouble in Indiana, a constantly Republican state where he is putting in extra effort, it will not bode well for his chances in the other swing states.

With just a little less than a month to go before election day, it is time to take a close up state by state look again.  There has been movement in the swing states and it will move even faster in the next two weeks. By the last week, we should be ready to make a prediction.