Obama reducing Michigan staff

The Obama campaign is pulling some staff members from Michigan and sending them elsewhere with less than three weeks until the election.  Some say that the move is long overdue, since the Obama campaign is still leading with strong numbers in the state.  The campaign says that more than 200 Obama staffers will remain, with the 61st campaign office set to open this weekend.  The Detroit Free Press writes:

Political observers said they were surprised it took Obama so long to make the move. States are winner-take-all, so there’s no benefit to winning by a larger margin, but a huge benefit to winning by a hair.

Is Obama truly devoted to winning the largest margin possible in Michigan?  It is more likely that he is taking nothing for granted.  Michigan may look good in the current polls and have a strong history of voting for Democratic presidential candidates, but the state also has a growing suburban, Republican-leaning population.  Recently, economic troubles have some people leaning toward Obama despite more conservative social values, but there is still time for the election to turn around.  It doesn't look likely, though, with national economic discussions changing from a focus on a few bad days to a recession.  This does not bode well for McCain.

Michigan has also gotten tied up in the ACORN controversy.  In Michigan, ACORN has registered over 200,000 new voters, and some new voter registration applications have been found to be false.  ACORN's chief organizer in Michigan, David Lagstein, says that it was a "partisan attack" that the McCain campaign released harsh criticism of Obama's relations with the group on the same day a former ACORN worker's arrest for falsifying registrations was announced.  However, Lagstein did not condemn the arrest.