More poll talk

While browsing Memeorandum, I saw the Rasmussen Texas poll as a featured link and said, "Huh?" The New Republic's Nate Silver was discussing recent polls and mentioned Texas:

The two polls of Texas show the race tightening, but probably not enough to make the race interesting. There's a good rundown here of the pros and cons of Obama investing resources in Texas. . . . If Tejanos vote in anything resembling the same proportion that they constitute of Texas's citizenry, the state could be quite competitive.

I can assure Nate Silver that at the RNC they're laughing their butts off at the prospect of Obama wasting campaign resources in Texas, whatever the sympathies of "Tejanos" may be. (The problem with that scenario is that, despite its large Hispanic population, many Hispanics are either illegals or recent legal immigrants who aren't eligible to vote, while the more assimilated Tex-Mex are fairly conservative.)

Silver's attitude is indicative of the dizzy overconfidence that Obama has inspired in liberals, so that he utterly fails to realize that, despite David Plouffe's talk of a 50-state strategy, many of the states won by Bill Clinton (e.g., Kentucky) appear to be off-limits to Obama. Meanwhile, McCain is very close in Ohio, and not out of range in Michigan, Pennslyvania and -- here's a shocker -- Connecticut.

Yet even now Obama's brain trust is talking about sending their guy on world tour. I'm sure the gang at RNC headquarters are chilling champagne for their Obama bon voyage party.