sorry but these map are strange if Mitt Romney will win MI there is no way he will lose FL or NC
and to think The Grinch could lose TX but win OH is crazy too
IMO
The other way of putting it is that
(1) Michigan (and Pennsylvania) always look tempting to Republicans as a likely zone of political pick-offs, but in practice the labor unions prove the foot-soldiers for Democratic campaigns, and they are almost always (2010 excepted) extremely effective. You can't see now what goes on in the late summer and early autumn... the Religious Right tends to counter that to some extent, but without the numbers they lose. President Obama will get credit for saving the auto industry which will ensure him the huge margins in anything from Lansing to the south and east that will solidify Michigan.
(2) Ohio is a legitimate swing state to the extent that it has gone with the Presidential winner in every Presidential year since 1960. Ohio is slightly more R/less D than Michigan in most years, but this time most indicators favor Democrats. Its Democratic Senator is unlikely to lose, the Republican Governor is immensely unpopular, and in the last generic ballot the Democrats had the lead on Congress. As in Michigan, the unions are the real work behind Democratic campaigns, and this time the President will get credit for saving the industries that depend upon the auto industry.
(3) Gingrich has been shown as the most unforgivable phony to conservatives -- not so much for his sleazy marital life, but for first being a political insider and then posing as a political outsider while being a money-grubbing lobbyist. He may become irrelevant very fast. Newt Gingrich bled Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for filthy lucre.
(4) Florida is beginning to look like a disaster for the GOP. The Governor is so unpopular that if he were the President of an independent Republic he would have to watch his back out of fear of a coup by the Armed Forces. The Democratic Senator is doing fine. The generic ballot favors Democrats in the House. (On the generic ballot for Congress I have only five states available; the Republicans will likely hold their one at-large seat in Congress, but the Democrats have the advantage in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. All of them -- indicating that unless something goes right for the Republicans, the now-majority delegations from those states will be reversed in 2012, and that will be a huge chunk of what the Democrats need in 2012 to win the House "back" from the Republicans).
