Well, sh**t. California and Vermont must represent the whole damn nation, then!
Why are they less important than anything else with 58 electoral votes?
I can think of about 200 EC votes at least that Democrats have lost to the Republicans because of their abandoment of populism. And California isn't even nessicariliy libertarian. It's got a high populist latino population and the river-valley area is populist. Sure, we've gained maybe 100 EC votes due to our shift. But you can't deny that we aren't doing too well. The new deal coalition trimumphed much more than our current Democratic coalitition has. If you need any proof, just look at the party affiliation of Presidents. We had many Democratic Presidents in the past, not so many now. And the only Democratic Presidents we've had is Carter, who was a southern populist, and Clinton who was a Southern moderate with populist rhetoric at least.
