Pennsylvania yesterday. Wisconsin today. Iowa tomorrow. What in the heck are Steve Schmidt & Co. doing? Do they know something the rest of us don't? Or are they simply flailing about, searching for a toe-hold in a Kerry state that they might be possibly be able to flip to offset losses and still make 270?

I'm not sure. But the map in this race has boiled down to some pretty straightforward analysis. Start with the Bush map in 2004 and work from there: Iowa is almost certainly gone, and Obama has a decent edge in New Mexico as well.

That leaves eight red states from 2004 for John McCain to defend: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. If he wins them all, he's president. If he loses Nevada but wins the rest, we have a 269-269 tie (depending on the outcome in the 2nd Congressional districts in Nebraska and Maine). If he loses anything else, he's the senior Senator from Arizona.

Right now, McCain trails Obama in the polls in every one of those states except Indiana. So, clearly, he has his work cut out for him over the next three and half weeks.

But the question, as a Republican strategist emailed me yesterday, is why McCain is spending time in states he MIGHT win, when he should be spending time in states he MUST win.

Maybe the McCain camp believes it has to stay on offense somewhere. Maybe they're skeptical of some of the polling that shows them down in places like Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina. Or maybe they feel that if they're going to end up losing those states it's a lost cause anyway.

I don't know, but from the outside it sure is hard to try and decipher what the McCain camp's strategy is at the moment.