“People in Washington like to second guess us on this and say, ‘you ought to go back to (focusing on) the 15 or 20 states and why do you have a Idaho state director and why do you have a Utah state director?'” said Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager, referring to Republican western strongholds.

“The fact is, we have supporters there who want to get involved in the campaign, and they ought to be able to get involved,” he said in an interview in his Chicago office…

“His campaign has to do something to fundamentally change the electoral landscape, and broadening the map is probably the only option out of a bunch of bad ones,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former adviser to one-time presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty…

And though he may defend areas that should be in his corner, establishing operations all over the country will force Republicans to spend money in states they should own, too.