Further, Mr. Obama’s political team does not see a problem with white working-class voters. They just see problematic states and will compensate those ones by winning Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia, Iowa, and possibly Ohio. Ohio is included to avoid the wholesale discrediting of this strategy. Although, they are probably writing it off as well.

While recent tracking polls give Mr. Obama an advantage over McCain in Colorado, his overall western state strategy seems to ignore an important variable. Mr. McCain has cut his political teeth winning elections by appealing to the self-reliant and forward-looking voters who populate the western states.

Moreover, while the immigration issue has caused Mr. McCain problems with the Republican base, it uniquely positions him as a viable alternative to Mrs. Clinton’s Latino supporters in those states.

Virginia is another matter. Democrats have made significant inroads there winning the governor’s mansion in 2005 and a senate seat in 2006. However, the last Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state was Lyndon Johnson. An Obama victory in Virginia is very far from a sure thing.

Add the DNC’s disenfranchisement of primary voters in Florida and Michigan, and Mr. Obama’s prospects in those two states seem tenuous at best.

A year that was supposed to hold enormous promise for the Democrat nominee now seems like a flashback to past defeats of them. And Mr. Obama, who touts himself as a new type of political leader, now seems like a practitioner of old and failed political strategies. Oh, how history repeats itself.