Obama ready to fight for Western states

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LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (AP) -- It's the first event on the first day of a campaign swing through three Western states, and Barack Obama is covering all his bases.

Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a Memorial Day event in Las Cruces, New Mexico, Monday.

He's got patriotism, a Memorial Day event for veterans. He's got cowboys, the location is the Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. He's got Hispanic voters, Gov. Bill Richardson introduced him. He's even got a nod to the environment: The Organ Mountains loom behind him as birds sing and the warm New Mexico wind blows.
Obama is signaling, even before the Democratic primary formally wraps up, that he intends to fight this fall for Western states that narrowly went Republican four years ago.
New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado aren't definitely Democratic blue or Republican red. Instead, they're known as "purple states" by political junkies.
Together, they account for only 19 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. But those votes could be vital in a close race, particularly if Obama's weakness among white, blue-collar voters carries over from the primary race and cuts his chance of winning some other states where Democrats usually do well.
"We're going to fight as hard as we can in these states. We want to send the message now that we're going to go after them and I expect to win them," the Illinois senator said Monday.