Obama will win or lose by a small EV margin or win by a large EV margin

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Two problems here, first of all, a general election poll is meaningless even if it is legitimate, since it doesn't show the ability to win the nomination. Secondly, that poll had all sorts of problems. Paul succeeded in keeping Obama to his lowest level of base support amongst the possible match-ups, but the real lead Obama had was around 10%. You can dismiss this reasoning from Nate Silver if you like, and you have done so, but you provided no explanation as to how he was wrong, since he does that sort of thing practically for a living, and you're just a poster on the Atlas forum.

Obama's lead was 1%, within the margin of error. I don't care what Nate Silver has to say. There is nothing surprising about the results Paul led independents 47-28 and took 58% of real American voters. I

t was only when the politically-connected establishment scum were counted, voting 95% for Obama, that Obama took his narrow lead. They shouldn't be allowed to vote anyway, considering the clear conflict of interest...

And you of all people are trying to insult me for being "just a poster on the Atlas forum"? Incredible. Remind me again of your credentials. You have a PhD or something, I assume?

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Things will change once the Ron Paul Revolution machine gets started again. Plenty of independents and swing Democrats who voted for Obama in the 08 primaries expecting "change" will be ready and waiting to vote for the real change offered by Paul in the 2012 GOP primaries.

[Marokai Backbeat]

You seem to rely an awful lot on the "hope" aspect of Ron Paul's hypothetical future support. Ironic, for such an Obama hater.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

You seem to rely an awful lot on the "hope" aspect of Ron Paul's hypothetical future support. Ironic, for such an Obama hater.

Of course. Ron Paul represents hope for America.

Barack Obama represents death and destruction and evil.

How is that ironic?

[Devilman88]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

[Devilman88]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

My apologies, but I'm afraid I don't take your prophesies concerning future political events as gospel. Nothing personal, of course.

[Devilman88]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

My apologies, but I'm afraid I don't take your prophesies concerning future political events as gospel. Nothing personal, of course.

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

My apologies, but I'm afraid I don't take your prophesies concerning future political events as gospel. Nothing personal, of course.

Ron Paul might be loved by you and your drugy friends, but for the rest of America and the Republicans Ron Paul is a joke.

[Obnoxiously Slutty Girly Girl]

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

My apologies, but I'm afraid I don't take your prophesies concerning future political events as gospel. Nothing personal, of course.

Ron Paul isn't going to win the Republican Nom. Libertas, stop while you are ahead. All you are doing is making yourself look stupid.

I'm making myself look stupid?

Stop being rude, devilman.

Yes, you are. Ron Paul is a joke, and everyone knows it. If he runs again, he will not get above 5% overall.

My apologies, but I'm afraid I don't take your prophesies concerning future political events as gospel. Nothing personal, of course.

Ron Paul might be loved by you and your drugy friends, but for the rest of America and the Republicans Ron Paul is a joke.

[Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey]

I should have explained what the percentages of electoral votes mean:

57.1% of the electoral vote (Truman 1948) is 307 electoral votes.

65.5% of the electoral vote (Taft 1908) is 357 electoral votes.

Woah there, Truman only got 303 electoral votes in 1948, and Taft only got 321 electoral votes in 1908 (66.5% of the electoral vote).

[pbrower2a]

I should have explained what the percentages of electoral votes mean:

57.1% of the electoral vote (Truman 1948) is 307 electoral votes.

65.5% of the electoral vote (Taft 1908) is 357 electoral votes.

Woah there, Truman only got 303 electoral votes in 1948, and Taft only got 321 electoral votes in 1908 (66.5% of the electoral vote).

Of course. But there were 531 electoral votes in 1948 (add Alaska, Hawaii, and DC) and 483 in 1908. There are now (and will be in 2012) 538 electoral votes unless Congress wishes to increase the number of House seats or admits Puerto Rico as a State. 

[redcommander]

The term "Blue Firewall" really isn't justified.

Eighteen states and DC all rejecting right-wing Republican nominees for President in three contiguous (or nearly-contiguous) groups... that's one chance in 2^95, or a number with 28 digits. The states are clearly similar in political culture. Before 1992 they were not all reliably Democratic; indeed, as late as 1976 Jimmy Carter (barely) won election despite losing nine of them.  Can you convince me that Jimmy Carter was that different from Bill Clinton in ideology?

Even two of the "near miss" states (Iowa, New Hampshire) seen to fit the pattern -- and Carter lost those. New Mexico, the other,  has no good analogue, and Carter also lost it. Go figure. Carter relied heavily upon southern states drifting R.

To start winning more than a handful of elections for President, the GOP must find nominees who don't have glaring weaknesses as candidates.  

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... and an incumbent who in 1992 had nothing more to achieve.  But why did the pattern seem to take hold then?

Maybe the GOP has increasingly relied upon Christian fundamentalists for the vote because they can be attracted with few costs. Just keep promising to be more strident in support for guns and such no-cost goodies as school prayer and an abortion ban. That constituency isn't going to demand higher wages that would cost the corporate sponsors of the GOP real money or force deficit spending on something that doesn't turn a profit. That constituency is shrinking, and in view of the deaths in 2008 of televangelists D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, losing its organization and political cohesion.

New England, the Middle-Atlantic States, the Pacific Coast states other than Alaska, and the Twin Cities-Chicago-Detroit triangle have comparatively few evangelical or fundamentalist Christians or Mormons. The GOP has bet heavily on white Bible-thumpers and lost what used to be the liberal Republicans.  Need I tell you that except for Hawaii (not yet a state) and DC (not voting until 1964)  all of the states that ever voted for Gore or Kerry voted for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956?

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Nice try. That assumes that every one of the sure losers of 2012 will so divide the Republican convention that the GOP will have to turn to a non-participant in the primaries or an early loser to get the candidate in the so-called "smoke-filled room". Even the best of them could be ill-prepared to face a well-funded, well-organized machine. It is also possible that the winner of such a consensus could be someone with glaring faults as a politician -- let us say George Allen or Rick Santorum.

The Blue Firewall fails only if President Obama fails as President. 2016? I am not making any bets.    

If one or more of those candidates runs that I mentioned, Romney, Palin, Huckabee, and all the other leftover 2008 presidential wannabes being touted currently won't have a chance of winning the nomination.

[pbrower2a]

The term "Blue Firewall" really isn't justified.

Eighteen states and DC all rejecting right-wing Republican nominees for President in three contiguous (or nearly-contiguous) groups... that's one chance in 2^95, or a number with 28 digits. The states are clearly similar in political culture. Before 1992 they were not all reliably Democratic; indeed, as late as 1976 Jimmy Carter (barely) won election despite losing nine of them.  Can you convince me that Jimmy Carter was that different from Bill Clinton in ideology?

Even two of the "near miss" states (Iowa, New Hampshire) seen to fit the pattern -- and Carter lost those. New Mexico, the other,  has no good analogue, and Carter also lost it. Go figure. Carter relied heavily upon southern states drifting R.

To start winning more than a handful of elections for President, the GOP must find nominees who don't have glaring weaknesses as candidates.  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

... and an incumbent who in 1992 had nothing more to achieve.  But why did the pattern seem to take hold then?

Maybe the GOP has increasingly relied upon Christian fundamentalists for the vote because they can be attracted with few costs. Just keep promising to be more strident in support for guns and such no-cost goodies as school prayer and an abortion ban. That constituency isn't going to demand higher wages that would cost the corporate sponsors of the GOP real money or force deficit spending on something that doesn't turn a profit. That constituency is shrinking, and in view of the deaths in 2008 of televangelists D. James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell, losing its organization and political cohesion.

New England, the Middle-Atlantic States, the Pacific Coast states other than Alaska, and the Twin Cities-Chicago-Detroit triangle have comparatively few evangelical or fundamentalist Christians or Mormons. The GOP has bet heavily on white Bible-thumpers and lost what used to be the liberal Republicans.  Need I tell you that except for Hawaii (not yet a state) and DC (not voting until 1964)  all of the states that ever voted for Gore or Kerry voted for Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956?

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Nice try. That assumes that every one of the sure losers of 2012 will so divide the Republican convention that the GOP will have to turn to a non-participant in the primaries or an early loser to get the candidate in the so-called "smoke-filled room". Even the best of them could be ill-prepared to face a well-funded, well-organized machine. It is also possible that the winner of such a consensus could be someone with glaring faults as a politician -- let us say George Allen or Rick Santorum.

The Blue Firewall fails only if President Obama fails as President. 2016? I am not making any bets.    

If one or more of those candidates runs that I mentioned, Romney, Palin, Huckabee, and all the other leftover 2008 presidential wannabes being touted currently won't have a chance of winning the nomination.

Ryan and Portman are in Congress -- at least two steps away from the Presidency. Both need to go Senate or Governor fast if they are to be President in 2016. Congress is very different from the Senate in that a Congressional election in most states is not a statewide election. Their weaknesses as campaigners would be exposed early.

Daniels? Some success in a middling state. He got re-elected in the same year that Barack Obama had an anomalous win of his state in a Presidential election. he still has connections to Dubya as a budget director... for some time, Dubya will be political poison. Gregg? Senator from a small state. If he has Presidential aspirations, then they are for 2016. Better than the others? Maybe. That might not be enough. Daniels is poorly known outside of Indiana except tor the Toll Road deal which is unpopular in neighboring Michigan and Ohio. Ouch! Gregg has to establish that he is not a lockstep reactionary because he is GOP, and he has plenty of time in which to do so. 

[DS0816]

The term "Blue Firewall" really isn't justified. Just because certain states haven't voted Republican since Reagan and HW Bush doesn't mean that the GOP is unable to win their electoral votes. The reason Republicans have sucked so recently in Presidential politics is because they put up a decrepit Senator in 96, a Neo-Con in 00 and 04 who had no cross-party appeal, and another decrepit Senator in 08 only with a loon as his running mate to top it off. Perhaps for 2012 they should be thinking of getting Gregg, Daniels, Ryan, Portman, or perhaps someone else currently out of there that is out of the spotlight besides the unappealing field of Pawlenty, Huckabee, Romney, Palin, Pataki, Barbour, etc.

It's justified.

George W. Bush was a war time president. There is no excusing his inability to get the nation behind him let alone his inability to break through that "blue firewall." Especially given he's the first Republican president who has never once won the likes of California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

None of the others you've mentioned as potential Republican nominees for 2012 has … "potential."

[redcommander]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

[DS0816]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

George W. Bush didn't win the popular vote in Election 2004?

[pbrower2a]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

On the morning of Election Day, 2004, I was convinced that John Kerry would win -- until I flipped through some channels and found some televangelist who, at the end of his program, announced that Christians have the obligation to vote in the election of the day as if their salvation depended upon it. That sort of message surely had been echoing through Fundamentalist churches two days earlier -- vote for George W. Bush and the GOP, candidates  that God Almighty wanted to win. The Religious Right was then at or near its peak in political influence, and many Christian Fundamentalists could be expected to vote against their economic interests on behalf of people who showed support for plutocracy, school prayer, devotional readings in school, and an abortion ban.

Of course, Kerry didn't get enough support from independent voters (who almost invariably make the difference). 

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Anyone else sick of this 'blue firewall' nonsense?

[auburntiger]

Anyone else sick of this 'blue firewall' nonsense?

Yes, but I'll admit that if we're going to win those states, we have to shift the focus from social issues to fiscal responsibility and move away from the Bush years. Think Bob McDonnell 2009 campaign.

[pbrower2a]

Anyone else sick of this 'blue firewall' nonsense?

Yes, but I'll admit that if we're going to win those states, we have to shift the focus from social issues to fiscal responsibility and move away from the Bush years. Think Bob McDonnell 2009 campaign.

Regrettably, Bob McDonnell bungled badly with his "Confederate Heritage Month" in a state with a large African-American population... and an anti-gay agenda. 

[GLPman]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

On the morning of Election Day, 2004, I was convinced that John Kerry would win -- until I flipped through some channels and found some televangelist who, at the end of his program, announced that Christians have the obligation to vote in the election of the day as if their salvation depended upon it. That sort of message surely had been echoing through Fundamentalist churches two days earlier -- vote for George W. Bush and the GOP, candidates  that God Almighty wanted to win. The Religious Right was then at or near its peak in political influence, and many Christian Fundamentalists could be expected to vote against their economic interests on behalf of people who showed support for plutocracy, school prayer, devotional readings in school, and an abortion ban.

Of course, Kerry didn't get enough support from independent voters (who almost invariably make the difference). 

Stop making excuses. Kerry lost because the majority of Americans viewed him as inferior to Bush. When 2012 rolls around, Obama and the 2012 Republican nominee will face the exact same scenario - is the incumbent inferior or superior to the nominee? Oh, and the entire thesis of this thread is ridiculous.

[pbrower2a]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

On the morning of Election Day, 2004, I was convinced that John Kerry would win -- until I flipped through some channels and found some televangelist who, at the end of his program, announced that Christians have the obligation to vote in the election of the day as if their salvation depended upon it. That sort of message surely had been echoing through Fundamentalist churches two days earlier -- vote for George W. Bush and the GOP, candidates  that God Almighty wanted to win. The Religious Right was then at or near its peak in political influence, and many Christian Fundamentalists could be expected to vote against their economic interests on behalf of people who showed support for plutocracy, school prayer, devotional readings in school, and an abortion ban.

Of course, Kerry didn't get enough support from independent voters (who almost invariably make the difference).  

Stop making excuses. Kerry lost because the majority of Americans viewed him as inferior to Bush. When 2012 rolls around, Obama and the 2012 Republican nominee will face the exact same scenario - is the incumbent inferior or superior to the nominee?

Excuses? No. George W. Bush won election under the circumstances that then existed. 2012 will not be 2004 again -- and it certainly won;t be 2008 again.

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It is far from ridiculous.  I simply notice a big gap in the percentage of electoral votes. Random chance suggests that many electoral campaigns would result in Presidential victors winning between 57% and 63% of the electoral vote.

[sentinel]

No it was pretty much that Bush was unappealing to Democrats and Independents by 04.

On the morning of Election Day, 2004, I was convinced that John Kerry would win -- until I flipped through some channels and found some televangelist who, at the end of his program, announced that Christians have the obligation to vote in the election of the day as if their salvation depended upon it. That sort of message surely had been echoing through Fundamentalist churches two days earlier -- vote for George W. Bush and the GOP, candidates  that God Almighty wanted to win. The Religious Right was then at or near its peak in political influence, and many Christian Fundamentalists could be expected to vote against their economic interests on behalf of people who showed support for plutocracy, school prayer, devotional readings in school, and an abortion ban.

Of course, Kerry didn't get enough support from independent voters (who almost invariably make the difference).  

Stop making excuses. Kerry lost because the majority of Americans viewed him as inferior to Bush. When 2012 rolls around, Obama and the 2012 Republican nominee will face the exact same scenario - is the incumbent inferior or superior to the nominee?

Excuses? No. George W. Bush won election under the circumstances that then existed. 2012 will not be 2004 again -- and it certainly won;t be 2008 again.

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It is far from ridiculous.  I simply notice a big gap in the percentage of electoral votes. Random chance suggests that many electoral campaigns would result in Presidential victors winning between 57% and 63% of the electoral vote.

I read your first post and I'd definitely agree. Although please be prepared to mock Libertas when someone else other than Gary Johnson or Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, since, they're not going to win it.

[auburntiger]

Anyone else sick of this 'blue firewall' nonsense?

Yes, but I'll admit that if we're going to win those states, we have to shift the focus from social issues to fiscal responsibility and move away from the Bush years. Think Bob McDonnell 2009 campaign.

Regrettably, Bob McDonnell bungled badly with his "Confederate Heritage Month" in a state with a large African-American population... and an anti-gay agenda. 

I don't agree with everything that was said during his campaign. My point was that the campaign was steller...pushed the right buttons at the right time and was strong enough to recapture all of NoVA. Republicans should look to that as a model for future campaigns.