Democrats: If you lose Florida and Ohio, do you still feel confident of victory?

[Smash255]

Please quit saying Virginia. Infact...if you guys quit about Virginia, I'll quit about Minnesota.

The Dems have a MUCH better chance of winning VA than the GOP does of winning Minnesota.

In response to your original question, yes the Dems can win without OH.  CO, IA, NM, NV are all states Obama should do well in.  
Regarding your comment about if Bush beat Kerry there why McCain could lose in a 50/50 type election.  Well these states fit the following

1.  Stronger Obama appeal compared to Kerry
2.  trending Democrat
3.  Both

[Smash255]

The Dems have a MUCH better chance of winning VA than the GOP does of winning Minnesota.

I'm reluctant to believe that (on the Virginia end) because we keep seeing Virginia overpoll Democratic in federal races and then not come through in the end. Much like NJ. I think the situation in Virginia is changing rapidly because NoVa has shifted so much, so quickly, but the starting point was so far from the mid-point that it's hard to say Democrats can reach that 50%.

If you look at a 50/50 midpoint Virginia, in 04 it was 5.74% more GOP than the national average.  based off the trend from 2000, a similar trend would put it at 3% more GOP than the national average in 08.  If anything the trend in Virginia has picked up even more steem than it had previously in the last couple of years.  A swing of 4-5% against the national average or even slightly more is a very distinct possibility, and a swing of at least least 3% compared to nationally is almost certain.

Considering where the state was compared to the national average in 04, its current trend if the Dems win nationally by 3% they are almost assured to win the state and have a very good chance of winning the state with a 1-2% win nationally.

MN on the other hand was slightly further from the national average than VA was (though not much) about 5.9%, but the state is showing no signs of trending GOP at this point, if anything its drifting back towards the Dems a bit more. 

Anyway my main point was its going to take a much larger national win for the GOP in order to take Minnesota than it would for the Dems in order to take Virginia.

[Smash255]

If you look at a 50/50 midpoint Virginia, in 04 it was 5.74% more GOP than the national average.  based off the trend from 2000, a similar trend would put it at 3% more GOP than the national average in 08.

I don't think you can safely extrapolate swings that way... to do a reductio ad absurdum, by 2020 you'd have Virginia voting 6% more Democratic than the country as a whole, and no one thinks that's going to happen without a realignment that makes current meanings moot. We do have observable conditions that have led to the shift in Virginia that have continued to take place post-2004, but then on the other hand, Virginia is a state where McCain could actually outrun Bush, and I certainly expect him to in PVI terms.

Actually I don't tgink that 6% figure is much of a stretch.  Obviously trends one way or the other can come and go, even out or even back track the other way.  However, their is absolutley no indication that VA's Dem trend has slowed down let alone reversed itself.  If anything the evidence would seem to point to the VA's Dem trend even picking up even more steam than it has shown in the past as northern VA is in full out steamroll mode.

[Smash255]

I think they could lose Florida and still have a comfortable shot at winning, as long as they don't lose PA.  However, if they've lost Ohio, then they've already lost FL and PA, and the game will be pretty much over.

I just can't see them losing such huge states that are usually good indicators of a 50/50 country (IE: Florida, Ohio) and then have western states that went for George Bush NOT go for John McCain.

That's why I think they can lose Florida but still carry PA and OH.  They are all close to the center as far as voter turnout.  I think in this current match-up, Ohio is leaning more Dem, PA is on the balance, and Florida is leaning Rep.  So as long as the Dems carry OH and PA, they can afford to lose FL if they pick up something in the Great Lakes or midwest areas.  However, they can carry OH and still lose the election if the Reps can claim PA.  And of course, if the Reps get OH, it's all over.

That's just my theory as of late. If George Bush can win those states...why can't John McCain win AND THEN SOME?

Because you can't take all of the good that George W Bush provided electorally and then automatically project that onto McCain. Bush appealed to some demographics that McCain won't. And vice versa. For example, McCain will have a bigger problem courting evangelicals than Bush did. He'll have a harder time courting the hardcore conservative vote.

But it is you democrats who keep saying how he is a "George Bush clone".

Two of the issues Bush is most unpopular on the war, and the economy McCain is a clone on, and while some of the hardcore conservative might not love him as much as Bush and brainwash their kids in having them pray to McCain like they did with Bush, McCain trying to cozy up to the extreme right will only hurt more than it helps.

[Smash255]

It's really not that difficult for Obama to win without Florida and one of either Ohio or Pennsylvania.

Thank got we didn't nominate Hillary Clinton, the candidate of the 50+1% strategy.

The above map is not my prediction, just one of the (likely) permutations that would result in an Obama victory sans Ohio and Florida.

But that's basically what most of the most vocal Obama supporter's here have been pushing. You guys don't see the irony of attacking Hillary as the 50+1% strategy candidate and then advocating an Electoral College strategy which is the most narrow and specific, with the least room for error, of probably any Presidential campaign in history.

Narrow, specific, and no room for error?  Not exactly.

If Obama wins VA he needs to take only one of CO, IA, NV, or NM to win.
If he wins CO he needs to take VA or take two of IA, NV, or NM.
If he wins IA, NV, and NM then its a tie which he'd win in the House.

So there are multiple combinations with which Obama could win involving those 5 states.  Plus, most people assume IA and NM are leaning strongly towards him so that means he only needs to take one of the other three to win.

I think what it comes down to really is how you define risk.  Most people assume that its safer and easier to just go after Ohio but is it really all that safe to bank you entire campaign on one state?  Before 2000, the most recent election in which switching Ohio would change the outcome was 1916.  2000 and 2004 are anomalies in recent presidential history in that neither candidate receive more than 300 electoral votes.  That means that nearly every president was elected, not because of one crucial "swing state" but rather because he won a multitude of states by building a broad based coalition of voters.  I think that is something which plays greatly to Obama's strengths.  His whole campaign has been about building grassroots support across the country.  Couple that with Dean's 50-state strategy and you have a winning combination.

Hypocrisy doesn't help you 'build grassroots support around the country'. In fact, it doesn't endear you to much of anything. When your supporters dance on the grave of the Florida Democratic party and your candidate makes up excuses to prevent the state of Michigan a chance to vote again, you don't have any credibility to talk about a "50-state strategy". The whole concept is now completely bankrupt, completely regardless of its merits,  based on the actions of this champions. Rather than unite the party, the injection of Deaniac politics in the Democratic party has divided it against itself. The problem with our party today is that our party chairman made his career in national politics not by attacking Republicans but by attacking members of his own party. Rather than expand our reach to all 50 states, it is merely just another attempt to open up a mini "culture war" within the party between "good Democrats" and "bad Democrats", with a kind of unbending orthodoxy that will destroy it.

Buried beneath of all that analysis, which, scarily, mirrors perfectly the "Left Activist Line" that exists online, is the cold hard fact that your candidate is relying on a strategy where at most he could get 278-291 electoral votes, based on the states you mentioned. That is his max, based on this strategy. Your coalition is not any more 'broad based' than the coalition who you seek to replace. The fact that it is based on smaller states does not change that. The "Left Activist Line" takes a very subjective view of the size of states, a kind of bigotry which was born of insecurity but of late has gotten absurd.

First off, if anyone who is trying to play the 50% +1 card its Hillary not Barrack, you know all these well his states don't count concept.   The 278-291 number that is mentioned, is not Obama's max no one is suggesting it is.  This thread is about where it would be if the Dems didn't win Ohio and Florida, not the max they could possibly get....


 If Hillary didn't bitch and whine and try and change rules she herself agreed with after the fact we wouldn't be even having this issue.  Hell, the whole re-vote angle on her side is actually relatively new, as she was trying to get the votes counted as it was even though the voters were told beforehand that they wouldn't count.  The whole re-vote angle is a new one, not to mention some of the questions about the re-vote the Obama campaign has brought up is a legit one.  The voters were told the results would not count, because of that some voters likely voted in the GOP Primary which they would not have done if they were told the Dem primary would count.