Democrats CAN capture Texas.

[pbrower2a]

Texas votes for Obama only in an Eisenhower-scale electoral blowout or something more severe to the GOP (on the scale of LBJ in 1964). The Latino population is young, and as an electorate it is growing fast. But that electorate isn't large enough to keep Texas from being one of the most conservative-leaning States.

I describe Texas as a political mass as "Kansas grafted onto Florida"... Kansas being one of the most conservative States in the Union and Florida close to the national average. Should Florida go to Obama by 10-15% in 2012, so likely goes Texas. But that is asking a lot.

Will Obama actively campaign in Texas in 2012? Probably not. Texans often found that if they wanted to do something for the  Obama campaign through active campaigning that they had to go somewhere else -- New Mexico or Missouri -- to have an effect. Will Texas matter? Obama will win without Texas if he is at all effective as President.

 

[pbrower2a]

Only if Obama is god, which he hasn't been lately.

Ronald Reagan wasn't God, either, and he won Massachusetts. Obama obviously doesn't need Texas in 2012.

[pbrower2a]

Let's look at Texas. It has lots of military-connected people, and the white ones at the least surely voted heavily for McCain. The war record was good for some votes nationwide, and especially in a State with so many military people. The San Antonio area is a favorite area for retired military personnel; it's a cheap place to live with good weather and big-city attractions.

In 2012 the GOP nominee won't be a war hero. Texas trended strongly Democratic since 2004, although that may be the loss of the Favorite Son effect. It is becoming more urban... and just look what happened in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida in 2008. Suburbia is legitimately urban, and its residents increasingly recognize the need for expensive government.

Texas has no obvious parallel in any other state because it is not so much a part of a region; it is so large that it straddles regions. Graft Kansas onto Florida and one roughly has Texas as a political entity.  Northwestern Texas  (basically anything west of Dallas-Fort Worth except for El Paso) is strongly Republican, like Kansas, and it will give any Republican nominee about a 75-25 edge with a similar population. The rest of the state is much like Florida in its politics except that the Hispanic population is Mexican instead of Cuban in origin.

If Obama wins Florida by an 8% margin, he wins Texas too -- barely. That is asking much. Texas is urbanizing rapidly, and urbanized Texas will turn a deaf ear to "small government" rhetoric. Suburban government can be cheap -- only if it is ineffective because it is hamstrung. Obama can cut into the military vote if he handles Iraq and Afghanistan well and doesn't get America into any inapt and failed adventures.

With the obvious exceptions of Oklahoma County and Tulsa County in Oklahoma and Maricopa County in Arizona (McCain is from there), Tarrant County (Fort Worth) was the largest metro county in population to go for McCain by more than ten percent. Should Obama win Tarrant County in 2012, he wins Texas.

   

[pbrower2a]

If Obama wins Florida by an 8% margin

I'll stop you right there. There's no way in hell Obama wins Florida by 8 points. That means he will have to win nationally by 12 points at least which won't happen.

Would you have said in April 2005 that Barack Obama would've even came close to being the democratic nominee?

If the economy is "fixed" in four years, 12 points is possible.

I'd argue that each party has a baseline of 45%, and its the 10% in the middle that swing the election.

FYI, Richard M. Nixon won the 1972 Presidential election 60.67 to 35.52.  LBJ beat Goldwater 61.05 to 38.47 in 1964.  Of course, something went very wrong for the challengers -- that their opponents successfully depicted them as dangerous extremists.  So in all likelihood the partisan base for any major-party candidate is in the 35% range.

I don't claim that the 2012 election will look anything like either the 1964 or 1972 election -- and I don't want it to do so.

[pbrower2a]

I'm basing it off the past 6 elections. America is more polarized now than before, so landslides are less and less likely. Barack Obama's 7 point win, is as close to a landslide as we will have in a while.

I concur with you on the Right-Left and regional polarization of the American electorate. The 7% spread in votes between Obama and McCain would ordinarily be enough for a 35-state landslide. Obama won twenty-one states and DC by 10% or larger margins yet lost fourteen by 10% or larger margins.  Regional rifts in America are huge. Nineteen states and DC that had not voted for any Republican nominee for President since at least 1988 accounted for 248 electoral votes -- 93% of the 270 needed for election, and the closest among them was Pennsylvania.

The most likely pickups for Obama in 2012 will be Missouri (very close in 2008), Montana (likewise), Arizona (won't be the home state of the Republican nominee for President, and the Favorite Son effect is usually worth about ten points), and perhaps Georgia (5% spread). Such would be the basis of a landslide just bigger than Clinton's 1992 win.

The polarization seems unlikely to intensify.  

I have noticed that in the last 100 years no Presidential nominee has won between 57.1% (Truman, 1948) and 66.5% (Taft, 1908) of the electoral votes. Although any candidate would be satisfied to win 61.8% of the electoral vote (roughly 330), such seems not to happen. It seems that a candidate who faces the prospect of winning only 210 or so electoral votes takes chances that will either ensure that he gets closer or that the other side will gain big. No distinction exists between winning 165 electoral votes and winning 265 electoral votes; both are losses. Those who are behind but close to winning don't take outrageous chances because with a little more effort here and there they might win, and those who aren't so close must resort to high-risk gimmicks (like making promises that have a chance of blowing up, trying to find votes where they can't be found, or certain forms of risky negative campaigning) to have even a slight chance to win. Those gimmicks might alienate more voters than they win and thus cause the loss of electoral votes. Looking good while losing is no choice for someone unlikely to win another nomination except by winning. 2008 was a prime example; it was very close in mid-September. Totals of electoral votes for the winning candidate seem to be within 35 of losing or more than 90 away from a bare win. Sure, that is 26 elections, which isn't many, but there is no random scatter of electoral results.

Of course, if a Presidential candidate is far behind and sees little chance of winning, then he might see no chance of any gambit allowing a win. So it is with Mondale 1984, McGovern 1972, Goldwater 1964, or Landon 1936.

About all that one can now reasonably predict about 2012 is that Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President and that his opponent will not be John McCain. We have yet to know how effectively Obama will satisfy those who voted for him (if he satisfies them and no others, then he will win as in 2008 with a similar number of electoral votes and a similar proportion of the vote). He could do better -- or worse. Much worse? Then he loses to a reasonably-strong GOP nominee. Not quite so well? He probably wins narrowly due to narrow margins of victory in Colorado, Virginia, Iowa, and New Hampshire. It is also possible that he will be successful enough that he won't need to do much campaigning, in which case he would be satisfied to exchange Indiana for Arizona and North Carolina for Missouri and Montana.

So far there seem to be dozens of imaginable candidates to win the Republican nomination. They do not all have the same personalities and they do not all have the same strengths and weaknesses as campaigners. Nothing says that the "right" challenger will emerge against Obama, someone capable of cutting into constituencies that Obama thinks "his". Nothing says that such a challenger won't emerge from obscurity.

Incumbency has one huge advantage for even a mediocre President -- most notably the ability to set the political agenda. The incumbent who sets the wrong agenda (Carter) or no agenda (George H. W. Bush), let alone presides over economic ruin (Hoover) stands to lose to someone very different.

The best that I can do is to model "what happens if".    

  

[pbrower2a]

Concerning Texas politics and the effects of immigration, I remember reading an article several years ago in which a top Texas Democrat (sorry can't remember the name), basically said that Texas Dems weren't planning on winning too many elections in the 2000's but were waiting for future Democrats to immigrate here from Mexico, and were hoping to be competitive in the 2010's. I believe he also was referring to the longterm impact of young Texas born hispanics coming of age and voting as well. It was a very accurate and candid admission. Its not everyday that a politician says their party is actually relying on an infusion of help from outside the US to win power. (I should add he was merely pointing out the long term effects of a year after year infusion of hispanic immigrants into Texas to effect this change, not announcing some scheme of illegal immigrants storming the polls).

I think that I see a pattern here:

California
New Mexico
Colorado, Nevada
Arizona
Texas
Oklahoma? Kansas? Utah?

All eight of these states used to be or are now reliably Republican -- even California. California illustrates a pattern: although it seems to vote reliably for Democratic nominees for President, it voted for the Democratic nominee for President only once between 1948 (Truman, barely) and 1992 (Clinton, barely) -- LBJ in his electoral blowout against Barry Goldwater. New Mexico voted for Clinton and Gore, but not Kerry -- and went with  Obama by a decisive margin.

Many right-wing Californians moved to Colorado, remaking it into an erstwhile safe haven for GOP politics -- until their kids left the Religious Right and the Hispanic (largely Mexican-American) electorate became large. During much of 2008, Colorado was seen as the margin of victory for either McCain or Obama.  Nevada broke later for Obama but even more completely.

The demographics of Arizona are closer to those of Nevada or Colorado than to any other state, and Arizona would have voted for Obama over any potential GOP presidential nominee except  John McCain (R, AZ). The Favorite Son effect is significant, and it won't help the GOP nominee in 2012.  Take away 5-7% of the vote from the electoral results for the Republican nominee for President and give those to Obama, and Obama wins Arizona by 2% to 6% in 2012. Should Obama win Arizona in 2012, then that is itself progress while standing still; Obama is more likely to win Arizona than either Indiana or North Carolina.

Texas follows. Politically, Texas is Kansas grafted onto Florida, except that the Hispanic population in Texas is Mexican-American instead of Cuban. The Mexican-American electorate is growing faster than the population at large -- Hispanic or overall -- and that bodes ill for any GOP Presidential nominee beginning in at least 2016.  The GOP still has a more-than-50% chance of winning Texas in 2012 provided that it does not nominate a turkey from somewhere other than Texas (like Rick "Maybe Secession Isn't Such a Bad Idea" Perry, who might win Texas and little else).

Utah seems more a relic of Old New England/New York State than the Southwest -- but that is changing.  It has begun to get substantial Hispanic immigration. It will eventually become Southwestern.

Oklahoma is one of the most right-wing States in the Union... but it seems to be getting many Hispanics fast. Likewise Kansas, a state usually not seen as Southwestern.

I can't be sure that there will be a Republican Party in 2024 or later, and we might well have some huge re-alignment in regional politics by then.   

[pbrower2a]

Once Barack Obama passes the amnesty bill, Democrats will get a few hundred thousand more votes, at least, in presidential elections.

That's exactly why Democrats are pushing hard for this bill. For votes. Not for the good of America...for votes.

I'm sure Republicans would be for it too if they could expand their base to include anything but white, God-fearing, Bible-thumping, gun-clinging, Confederate flag-waving, gay-hating, tractor-driving Bubbas in Rural America, don'tcha think?

On that note, let's talk immigration reform lol

Other than the "gay-hating," I don't see a problem with those attributes.

I'm Hispanic, don't own a gun, am not a fan of the Confederate flag, and don't drive a tractor, but doesn't mean I have to look down upon people who do fit those attributes.

Accelerating the process of naturalization would be more effective at gaining the right votes fast than would be the easing of immigration. Amnesty is not instant citizenship.