Johnson 2012.
I'm dead serious.
Probably would depend a lot on who his running mate is, but there would definitely be some new contests brought into play. Especially after Obama's popularity takes its inevitable nosedive.
Well sadly the evangelical and socially conservative turnout will be lower (and in some places might go Democrat). However, Johnson would suddenly become very competitive in plenty of D states that have a large population of civil libertarians frustrated by the Obama administrations passiveness on ending the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Patriot Act.
Here's what I think the map would look like, hell it might become a realignment election:
While in the Deep South Johnson would lose alot of votes he would become the strongest presidential candidate in the Mountain West since Reagan, winning his home state of New Mexico (which usually leans Democrat) with more than 60% of the popular vote. He would capture the entire western United States, even California and Washington (the latter's libertarian nature would finally reveal itself without a social con in the race). In spite of his overall weakness in the South (compared to previous GOP candidates) Johnson would do very well in Texas and Oklahoma thanks to those two states having very fiscally conservative qualities.
As you can see the South will become fractured due to the lack of turnout from evangelicals and social conservatives, causing quite a few states to go Democrat that otherwise would've gone Republican. However, in the place of those lost Southern states quite a few unlikely Republican states like New Jersey, Maine, and even Pennsylvania would go due to many moderates and even quite a few liberals becoming disillusioned with Obama's stances on foreign policy, the War on Drugs, DADT, and other civil libertarian issues.
Once again I will admit that this scenario is a bit insane, but I am sticking by it.
I'd reverse KY and TN. The GOP is stronger in Tennessee, and KY is very similar to West VA in voting patterns at least now. Otherwise, it'd be nice to see a change from the norm.
