Strategies on campaign road diverge

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign says it will fan out while John McCain's camp says it'll focus on usual battleground states in the U.S. presidential race.

Strategists to the Illinois Democrat said Obama would compete in traditionally Republican states while McCain workers said the Arizona Republican would concentrate on a small number of battleground states, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

Strategists in both camps told the Times it was too soon to tell whether Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's conservative bona fides would put new states in play for the GOP.

Recent national polls indicate the race is a dead heat.

"We had no illusions that this was going to be anything but close," Obama strategist David Axelrod said recently.

For Obama, the strategy is to retain the states Democrat Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., won in 2004, and capture enough traditionally Republican states to put Obama over the top, strategists said.

McCain's task is smaller, the Times said. His campaign officials see an election resting on a few Rust Belt and Upper Midwest states.

"Eighteen states is 10 states too many," one McCain strategist said, dismissing Obama strategists' assessment of how to capture the White House in November.