Scratch Minnesota on your list and replace it with Michigan. Even still, I suspect the Detroit machine will still be out in full force.
NH is not made up of the “conservative” base a Palin would need to win. It’s toss-up for Romney and so-so for everyone else.
The Republican base is heavily fractured in NV. There are enough of the Paulbot anarachists and socially moderate Repulicans, that unless the GOP candidate can unify all factions, they’ve got no shot here. The GOP nominee is going to have to get near 290,000+ votes in Clark and around 100,000+ in Washoe to have a shot, and this takes into account that Obama’s support will taper off. Because all of the nominees turn off some faction or the other, it’s hard to see a unifying effort here. This is what did in Sharon Angle.
Wisconsin is up for grabs and may be the best chance at grabbing the state in years. It was razor thin in 2004/2008 and the GOP survived everything that the Unions threw at them in the Special Elections.
Colorado is another ground zero location. Scratch this off for Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. Tea Party activists make up a plurality (but not a majority) of the GOP base. If you get Tancredo’s support for campaigning in the state, it’s competitive. If not, the state is blue.
Pennsylvania is always a tease. Depending on whether or not that EV by CD gets passed or not could by itself make up the “one” additional state the GOP would need to hit 270, because they’d win at least 6, if not more CD’s. As for winning outright, the key here is to win in the 6th CD with the margins Bush did, while capitalizing on the gains made in the 11th CD. The 11th has never majority voted for the GOP for POTUS in the last 30 years. If that happens, and the margins Bush carried against Kerry hold (McCain ran far weaker), then the GOP has a shot at taking PA.
Iowa - Romney has no shot. It’s a matter of who shows up at the polls in greater force: social conservatives v liberals, and the farmers that vote mainly on ethanol subsidies.
You left off New Mexico. That will be close also.
How does Tancredo swing CO? He ran for Governor last year and got, what? 36-37% of the vote?
Something not in the matrix of calculation, here. Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Michigan, and Nevada are all oil-producing states.
The new economic hope isn't coming from Washington D.C., but from the oil patch. That is why North Dakota has 3% unemployment statewide (even though only the Western third of the state has oil and gas production). It is the shining hope of thousands in Pennsylvania, in the Marcellus Shale, and now in the Utica, which extends under Ohio, and other midwestern and Appalachian states as well. Michigan is also an oil producer, one which has been frustrated by the inability to drill laterally under the Great Lakes and elsewhere, but which holds promise there as well.
The shining economic beacon of energy production, of jobs, of manufacturing, of security, of prosperity--not just survival--is a game changer, and Palin, more than any other candidate, seems to have not only a handle on that, but the ability to sit down at the table and ensure the folks in those regions will get a fair shake, that there will be a minimum of environmental damage as well.
It is the Federal Government which has done the most to damage Alaska's oil exploration, not the State, and having a cheerleader for responsible oil exploration who will play it straight for the people as well could have a great deal of influence on the outcome of the election.
Hoeven, as a running mate would bring the experience of having been governor during the greatest boom in decades in energy production in any state in the lower 48.
Resource development can be a key platform plank which fits closely with economic recovery.