Operating with the following assumptions:
1. The stock market reaches bottom in late 2009, and the economy begins to recover in early 2010.
2. The stimulus package works for the most part with minimal waste, helping to generate economic growth.
3. Obama and the Democratic Congress create a universal health care system along the lines of Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden's
proposal in order to attract broad bipartisan support. Single-Payer is apparently jettisoned early on in the process.
4. A Cap-and-Trade system is created, generating enough revenue that helps to reduce the budget deficit by roughly half by the time Obama runs for re-election.
5. The Employee Free Choice Act is passed narrowly by Congress in early 2010, barely cresting the 60-vote margin needed to overcome a Senate filibuster.
6. Justice John Paul Stevens dies, and President Obama nominates (and the Senate confirms) a dark-horse candidate who later turns out to be the conservative version of David Souter. In addition to strengthening the D.C. vs. Heller decision (by imposing a high standard for any new gun control laws) and ensuring that gay marriage would never be legalized by the Supreme Court for at least a generation, he provides the crucial vote required to overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision. Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. writes the opinion that essentially returns abortion to state legislatures to decide the issue as they see fit. A backlash develops on the left...
7. Vice-President Biden is kept on as Obama's running-mate.
8. Iraq further stabilizes, allowing the Obama administration to withdraw up to 100,000 American troops by the late summer of 2011. With the assent of the Iraqi government, the remainder (~40,000) is kept as a deterrent to Iran.
9. American troop levels in Afghanistan is escalated to 100,000 by early 2012. Situation in Pakistan continues to deteriorate as the Taliban focus their efforts east of the frontier provinces. Afghanistan is stabilized, but only barely with the arrival of additional American soldiers. The United States takes over the Afghan government in late 2009, getting rid of Hamid Karzai, and completely revamps it in an effort to rid it of corruption.
10. Republicans regain some lost ground in the House in the 2010 mid-term elections, but lose ground in the Senate with Democrats now in control of at least 60 Senate seats.
11. After some hard-fought primaries and caucuses between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich as their standard bearer (who is helped by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's decision to give his delegates to Gingrich, providing him with the crucial votes necessary to clinch the nomination). He picks Mike Pence as his running-mate.
Obama/Biden: 377 EV/55% PV
Gingrich/Pence: 161 EV/44% PV
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Of course, once the 2010 census has been conducted, the electoral vote numbers will be altered from this map.
