Posted on 05/18/2012 7:55:36 PM PDT by neverdem
Last week, I wrote a piece suggesting that Mitt Romney's path to the presidency wasn't necessarily narrow. Rather, the breadth of that path will depend on "environmental" factors that could ultimately push him well past the 286 electoral vote ceiling that has seemingly been imposed upon the Republican party since 1992.
On the other hand, Ron Brownstein suggests that this ceiling is an outgrowth of demography and changing coalitions, and is largely etched into our electoral map. This has created a “blue wall” consisting of “the 11 states from Maryland to Maine (except New Hampshire); the three West Coast states; and Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Hawaii (plus the District of Columbia).”
While Republicans fared well in these states from 1968 through 1988, since 1992 the increase in the minority population and the movement of Northern suburbs toward the Democrats has, according to Brownstein, placed these states out of reach for the party of Lincoln.
So which is it -- bad luck in the overall playing field, or have a substantial number of states moved irrevocably toward Democrats?
As it turns out, we can test these hypotheses fairly easily. And, as it also turns out, the truth is “a bit of both.”
What we can do is control for any “national effects” by looking at the states’ Partisan Voting Index, or PVI, over the past few elections (I’ve chosen 1980 through 2008 in order to capture trends that started pre-1992).
As a refresher, PVI tells us how a state votes compared to the country as a whole. In other words, Reagan won Massachusetts with 51 percent of the vote in 1984. Someone unfamiliar with American politics might therefore have labeled Massachusetts a swing state. But of course, Reagan was winning nationally with 59 percent of the vote that year, in...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
No, he won't. Haven't you been paying attention?
High-dollar GOP types love Obamacare and want to keep it at all costs, so they can get rid of employer-paid healthcare. They want to dump workers off on Obamacare. What happens after that, they don't GAS -- their health care will be paid for either by executive programs or by their own endless, evergreen millions.
Everyone else can go eat rocks.
That's the reality.
They love Obamacare -- they just want the Dems to get all the blame and hate and discontent. That's why they wanted the Dems to win in both 2008 and 2012. Yes, they are that cynical and blackhearted.
The rich really are different.
The last election when a GOP candidate lost one of these states and still cruised to victory was Calvin Coolidge in 1924 when Florida was still very much a deep south state. Hoover came and won all three three years later.
The last election when a Democrat candidate lost one of these states and still cruised to victory was FDR four years after that.
Ever since, the rule has held. Ever since Florida became a state (1848) election, no presidential candidate has ever lost two of the three and still won the election with the solitary exception of Grover Cleveland (1888 and 1892), who limped over the finish line with 49% and 46% of the popular vote (respectively) while losing both Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Who cares? The point is the media chose it for us. They don't want the democrats associated with RED because of it's ties to socialism. And they get away with it cause even the few politically intelligent people that have noticed don't care.
We don't need official party colors anyway, that has never been a American thing. I would only use it for the election maps and I would not use the color used by most socialist parties in the world for the Republicans. That's ridiculous. I'm not gonna play along out of laziness or try to spin that "red is the color of passion". Those kind of games are for little kids that don't like the color of their toothbrush.
As to this "blue wall" stuff. Romney does not need any of the states listed as "blue". And it's wrong to list Wisconsin and Michican with those others. Especially Wisconsin. Bush would have won it in 2004 if not for fraud.
And where is the talk of the "red wall" of wall of over 20 states that Osama has no chance in hell of winning?
“The point is the media chose it for us. They don’t want the democrats associated with RED because of it’s ties to socialism.”
And THAT’S the bottom line!!!
Better dead than red.
But for how long can that saying and associations be maintained? Nobody could seriously associate conservatives with Communist.
Perhaps if there was an agenda it was an effort to protect the left. I doubt it now, and in any case we can and should use this to our advantage.
“But for how long can that saying and associations be maintained? Nobody could seriously associate conservatives with Communist.”
On a worldwide political basis, red is still the color associated with Communism.
The libs are “students” of psychology, and I’m sure it’s to their advantage to be “blue” for the reasons stated prior in this thread.
I can only say I will vote for someone other than Romney and Obama. He did not want my vote and nor can I vote for him. I will only wish him good luck because the guy is a mess.
At the moment I have been reading up on Massachusetts politics. Our hole political system is in a bit of a mess. A lot of problems.
I can add that I hate the entire political system at the moment. It is more than Romney and Obama for me now. Because as I read more and learn more and listen to more I have come to see the whole system is infected and a mess. People ranging from George Soros and Alvin Toffler to Van Jones, Karl Rove and William Ayers have been pulling the strings.
Thank you.
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