Talk Elections

From www.patrickruffini.com (http://www.patrickruffini.com), one of the main Bush bloggers:

http://www.patrickruffini.com/research/swing2004big.jpg

Decided to do a link.  It was making the page act funny to me.

I remember Ruffini, he used to be on this Forum back in the days of the old Forum.

I have always enjoyed reading his blog and writings.  This map is very informative to say the least.

Ruffini's 2000 maps by precinct are also extremely informative.

The map seems to reveal some underlying trends:

Was Kerry's improvement in VT, NH, ME because he was from MA, or is New England now lost to the GOP?

Should the Democrats abandon the South?  Was even Gore's weak showing in the South artificially high because he was from a border state?

Should the Democrats be investing in ID, MT, SD, ND, WY where Kerry did much better than Gore?  Will there be an opportunity for them here in 10yrs?

And focus on the SW and Upper midewest?

Republicans should write-off the North-east, Democrats should write off the Deep South.

Or does it? George W Bush is not allowed to seek re-election in 2008.

VT, NH, and ME are not lost to Republicans forever, though I continue to think VT is probably beyond repair (too much movement from NYC).   A Republican who would be competitive here is not necessarily a social liberal, but more likely an environmental liberal, especially in Maine.  Also, I think anyone not named Bush would fair much better in NH.  Those rural NH people hate Bushes for some reason or another.

Unless Democrats nominate a Southerner, I can't see them being competitive in even the upper South (AR, LA, TN, NC, VA) or even Florida.  The Deep South has been gone to the Democrats for a while now.  I continue to believe that the Democrats are increasingly doing dumb things in the South, because those new Southerners are not becoming Dixiecrats; they are becoming Republicans and historically we know it is much easier for Democrats to win Dixiecrats to vote for them (witness Jimmy Carter 1976) than to win Republicans.

In the Plains states, there are no trends.  Look at the history: ND, MT, SD (less so WY and ID) are historically anti-incumbent, especially SD and MT.  The same pro-incumbent trends are apparent in HI, NY and IA (though less so this year in IA).  I don't really pay attention to any of those states for trends.

Clearly, unless different types of candidates are nominated (and I think there is a high chance of that in 2008), the SW US and the Midwest will continue to be your battlegrounds.

Just for fun I looked at the map and tried to interpret what states had counties going what way.

The results' geographical grouping was what surprised me:

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This is not taking into account the national shift, by the way. Very interesting.