Probably, but what the hell:
http://www.rove.com/maps/McCain-Obama-07-23-08.pdf
Giving the map a quick glance, a few things stand out to me:
1) The Dakotas appear to be in play. There is a strong libertarian streak to the Upper Plains and Rockies area. Another era in history it was called rugged individualism. Should create strong Republicanism, but the Bush Administration has not always been about the small government it professes to be. Which is why Montana is currently in the Obama column, and to a lesser extent explains Colorado as well (the urbanization of metro Denver is also a factor).
2) Though not by massive numbers, Pennsylvania and Michigan are both shaded blue. McCain does not have to win either state, but he at least needs Obama to have to sweat them to the end and spend craploads of resources holding serve.
3) Virginia is a tossup and the Carolinas, Georgia, and Arkansas only favor McCain by single digits. This is very troubling for McCain. He needs a Solid South.
4) Perhaps better news for McCain is Florida, Ohio, and Missouri. All toss-ups that McCain shows fractional leads in. Electoral evidence points to Florida trending Republican, so this being close might not be great news. But Ohio and Missouri are traditional bellweathers that practically always go to the winner. It is hard to wrap my brain around the concept of the Democrat doing better in Montana than Ohio, but that’s where the numbers are. Ohio could be a good example of a state that breaks Obama in the end if the older working and middle class white women that were behind Hillary and have misgivings about Obama get over said misgivings. Then again, if they don’t . . .
5) Why the heck is McCain’s strongest lead Tennessee? That has to be an outlier poll. I certainly believe the Volunteer State to be McCain country, but by stronger numbers even than Utah??
6) Another very strong state for McCain is West Virginia. That is no accident. Democrats have lost the Mountain State for at least a generation I fear. Overwhelmingly white, religious, gun owning, and strict environmentalism hurts its chief industry, so pocketbook issues aren’t even a slam dunk for Democrats here. Democrats better hope the Republican politicians in the state don’t grow a deeper bench of talent before the theoretical points in time that Byrd and Rockefeller retire from the Senate (or die in office).
7) Alaska is only +7 for McCain. That state doesn’t get to see the candidates personally very often, for obvious reasons. If he has the resources to spare Obama can try an ad campaign blitz up there and see what happens. The rugged individualism thing again. I would have to assume oil drilling vis a vis conservation is a big issue up there.
Overall this map leads me towards what I was thinking all along; excepting of course a major scandal or other landscape altering event, the range of result for this election is between a close McCain win and a comfortable (350-185) Obama win.
July 29, 2008 at 8:27 am |
The real issue is not how well Obama or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral vote — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Because of state-by-state enacted rules for winner-take-all awarding of their electoral votes, recent candidates with limited funds have concentrated their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 20 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
July 29, 2008 at 6:59 pm |
A national popular election for President sounds like a logical idea on its face. And, it is. But it would not solve the problem of most of the country being “spectators”. The problem is the Presidential candidates would just spend most of their time hanging around the major metropolitan areas where voters exist literally by the millions, and give scant attention to more rural states, or rural parts of states. It would also probably become even moreso a battle of paid advertising than it is now.