I hate to belabor the electoral politics world, jesus knows there are enough wanna-be carvel's and rove's out there in blog land, and they have memorized up to the minute tracking polls and the like. None-the less, here is one last politics jobby (well until a NH preview...)
Over on John Edwards website there is this addictive interactive electoral college map. On it you can view the electoral college win's state by state in that tried (tired) but true red=R blue=D breakdown for all the presidential elections dating back to 1980. You can start with it as the states were "won" in 200, and then create your own strategy by changing over different states, to show what would happen to the total Electoral College count. It's sort of addictive.
Start with it in the final SCOTUS count from 2000 and then click on ohio to make it a D win, we win. This is possible, the ohio economy is in a rough patch right now and they are not quite as socially conservative (backward) as some other mid-western/southern states.
Take away Maine; that could shift R pretty easily. We still win.
Now make oregon red, a very possible R pick-up. That makes it a tie ball game.
None of this even touches on florida where b. clinton will live for the month of October & November no matter who the nominee is, this will hurt in miami (the little boy janet reno stole) but the cuban population is less important that it used to be (as it get's younger/less active/second get). Clinton will help with the old jew’s who love him not to mention the younger retiree's who moved after cashing in the 401k's that blossomed under the Clinton/Gore economy and have withered since. Edwards on the ticket could MABY pick up a southern state (georga or south carolina) but it is doubtful.
In any case, to my totally uneducated eye, no matter how smug dick cheney looks there are still lots of ways to get the good guys back in the white house.
In other words, all that crap about hard nosed, rough neck and every other worn out tough-guy sports cliche applying to november 04 is totally valid.
Posted by thickeye at January 21, 2004 11:33 PM