With a little less than two weeks to go before Election Day, voters can expect to be saturated with differing versions of the Electoral College maps predicting the state of the presidential race.

With many states clearly blue, for Sen. Barack Obama, instead of red, for Sen. John McCain, what will be in play are those states that are still undecided. Despite what pundits may suggest, that this race is all but over for McCain, a lot can change in the next 13 days.

Despite a plethora of polling data, it is clear that this race still may tighten, when undecided voters make their final choices.

Over the weekend McCain admitted that he is behind. That may shift his campaign to look not at raw votes but the barest basic math of the Electoral College.

There are indications that he is more focused on getting 270 electoral votes and would be fine with a loss of the popular vote, if he can snag the White House, even by the slimmest of Electoral College margins.

Yet, Obama seems to be looking at a multifaceted strategy that not only looks at the electoral map and the popular vote, but also past Election Day to Inauguration Day and beyond.

While there are some who would be happy with a win of 50 percent of the vote, plus one #- Obama seems to be looking at what it will take to govern a nation that for so long has been labeled as 51/49 when it comes to governance #- that the nation is so closely divided by parties, that showing any real leadership that creates any negatives above 49 percent is just not worth the political capital.

But what Obama must know is that, with the war in Iraq, the war on terror and the financial meltdown that has occurred, a narrow win, from a governance perspective, might just make one feel as if the Oval Office might not be the one to have.

The result being that he is campaigning in areas that he may have even a slight chance to win, Electoral College-wise.

Yet, he needs to make sure that he doesn't create a situation where he loses, because he did not watch closely enough those states that were thought to be red that might turn to purple and then blue on Election Day.

Obama also seems to be aware, at least by way of his appearance schedule, that he needs not only a solid House of Representatives to back him up, but a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, to get whatever changes he wants to put through.

The result is his campaigning for candidates further down the ticket.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com