Could Louisiana go blue in November?Prominent pollster Dick Morris has listed Louisiana as one of five toss up states in his post-presidential debate electoral map.Don’t laugh — I know it’s jarring at first.  But if recent history is any indicator, Louisiana is not allergic to supporting Democrats. In both 1992 and 1996 former President Bill Clinton won Louisiana, and  Sen. Mary Landrieu is comfortably ahead of her Republican challenger John Kennedy in the senatorial race.  And our much beloved former Gov. Kathleen Blanco was a Democrat who enjoyed relatively high favorability ratings before Hurricane Katrina. According to voter registrations statistics compiled by the Louisiana Office of the Secretary of State, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a margin of more than 700,000.In populous parishes, this gap can be particularly pronounced. In Orleans Parish, Democrats comprise 67.3 percent of registered voters, a large advantage over the Republican’s 11.4 percent.To have even a long-shot chance of victory, Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign has to maximize turnout in the larger and more urban parishes like Orleans and East Baton Rouge, particularly among the disproportionately large black populations. But this strategy is hardly unique to Louisiana. In a slew of battleground states, Obama’s campaign faces the same challenge of maximizing Democratic and, particularly, black turnout in large urban centers and youth turnout in college towns.In states like Virginia and North Carolina — both traditionally red states — Obama is either ahead of his opponent, Sen. John McCain, or dead even. This wouldn’t be possible were it not for the Obama camp’s unusually strong and motivated ground game.The ground game of voter registration, phone banking and get-out-the-vote efforts are crucial for successful campaigns. Obama leads McCain in the number of field offices around the country by a nearly three-to-one margin.Obama’s campaign has worked aggressively to register new voters around the country through Vote for Change. Among the Obama camp’s own efforts are third-party voter registration groups like Project Vote and the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now. According to records kept by the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office, the number of black registered voters has increased by 90,110 since January 2006. Here on campus, the Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs registered 2,150 students to vote before the deadline on Monday. Both groups disproportionately skew toward supporting Obama. That’s a lot of new voters.But it isn’t enough to put Obama over the top in a state that voted for President Bush by more than 200,000 votes. Louisiana is no Ohio or Virginia. The campaign has resources here and there around the state, but its presence is a mere fraction of what a true swing state would have.And it underscores the enormous challenge a candidate with a funny name like Barack Hussein Obama will have winning Louisiana. Many of Obama’s inherent disadvantages are obvious.Race — to speak bluntly.But wait a second — the state did just elect an Indian for governor name Piyush “Bobby” Jindal.Jindal, though, is a Roman Catholic, exorcist-participating conservative good ole’ boy who wants to teach religious myths in science class and keep gays from marrying one another, and Obama is, well, a black Democratic senator from Illinois who’s pro-choice and against the Iraq War. Even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, southern Democrats are a bit of a different animal than, say, Democrats on the West Coast. Just look at Rep. Don Cazayoux — he could easily run as a Republican in California, Massachusetts or New York. Additionally, Morris’ characterization of Louisiana as a toss up isn’t supported by most other polling data. Pollster.com shows a solid red Louisiana with a trend estimate that has Obama trailing McCain by about 12 points, and RealClearPolitics.com and FiveThirtyEight.com also list Louisiana as a relatively safe McCain state. And for a bit of context, Morris also listed Arizona — McCain’s home state — as a toss up. That is, most charitably, a questionable assertion. But ultimately, Louisiana may not matter that much anyway.If Obama wins Louisiana, he certainly will have won Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina — providing well more than enough electoral votes to put him over the top. It’s unlikely Louisiana will be a “tipping-point” state — winning Louisiana would probably mean Obama has won a Reagan-style electoral landslide. But with less than a month to go before the big day, watch their campaign schedules. With such little time left to campaign, resources are allocated with the utmost prudence and efficiency — not a single day is wasted. If McCain holds a rally in Louisiana during October, it’s because his campaign believes he’s in trouble here — not because he misses the seafood. —-Contact Nate Monroe at [email protected]