WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Republican National Committee predicted this week that the GOP’s presidential campaign would be competitive in a number of states won by the Democrats in 2004, including Maine and New Hampshire.

“I think New Hampshire is a state that we will do well in,” said RNC Chairman Robert M. “Mike” Duncan, who added that the Republicans have “a good organization” in Maine.

Duncan met with reporters at the RNC headquarters on Capitol Hill to discuss the tactics and message the Republicans and their presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, will be using in this campaign.

Duncan acknowledged that “we don’t have the same kind of resources” available for a 50-state strategy like that launched by Barack Obama and the Democrats.

He pointed to outside groups such as moveon.org and unions as supplements to the Democratic efforts that will provide grass-roots support Republicans tend to lack.

“We’ve got to be smarter,” he said.

That means picking their targets, and Duncan also mentioned Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as states won by the Democrats four years ago that he thinks are in play this time around.

“We’re getting very good numbers [out of Pennsylvania] now. … There are a lot of Reagan Democrats there. … If we turn out the right votes, we can win in Pennsylvania.”

Duncan said, “Obama hasn’t closed the deal with Hillary Clinton’s voters,” the largely blue-collar and white male middle-class voters known as Reagan Democrats. “Barack Obama has not spoken to their issues,” he said.

“John McCain enlarges the battlefield for us” through his appeal to those voters and independents, Duncan said.

It was announced this week that both Sen. Hillary Clinton, who challenged Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, and former President Bill Clinton will speak at the Democratic convention. But it has not yet been announced whether a roll call vote of Hillary Clinton’s delegates will take place. A splinter group of Clinton supporters who are disgruntled at the way Hillary Clinton has been treated by the Obama campaign and have labeled themselves PUMA (which stands for Party Unity My A–), were scheduled to meet in Washington on Friday.

Duncan said the GOP campaign’s focus will be on Obama and what the Republicans see as his weaknesses. It’s an approach that has worked for the party in recent presidential elections.

“At the end of the day, people ask, ‘Do I trust this person, is he ready to be president?'” Duncan said, calling Obama, the junior U.S. senator from Illinois, “just another politician” and referring to his “thin resume.”

Echoing the theme in commercials the Republicans have been airing on television that juxtapose Britney Spears and Paris Hilton with Obama, Duncan made reference to Obama’s “rock star trip to Europe” and said, “People think Obama has a touch of arrogance.”

Duncan made no apologies for the ads, insisting, “We’re running a respectful campaign; it’s got some humor in it, but it’s respectful.”

Duncan did acknowledge the Republicans are running from behind at this point and it is widely thought that the Republicans are unlikely to pick up seats in the House and Senate.

He said the party does not have enough polling data yet to determine how many voters may be likely to split their tickets in November and vote for Democratic congressional candidates and John McCain for president.

“If we can keep it to within 5 points,” he predicted, the Republicans’ superior voter turnout effort would give them a victory in the presidential race.