Free Republic

Measured another way, Bush won 53% of the 538 electoral college votes available this year. Of all the chief executives reelected since the 12th Amendment separated the vote for president and vice president — a group that stretches back to Thomas Jefferson in 1804 — only Wilson (at 52%) won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes. In the end, for all his gains, Bush carried just two states that he lost last time. Another trend explains why all of this might matter to more than just historians: Throughout American history, the reelection of a president has usually...

But because Bush won more states, that leaves the Democrats with too narrow a base, especially in the Senate, which magnifies the influence of the Republican-leaning small states. Without a bigger battlefield, the Democrats are doomed to lasting minority status in Congress. For Democrats, these two problems are intertwined. Democrats probably can't regain much congressional ground in the red states until they elect a president who can improve the party's image there. The need is greatest in the South, where the GOP's crushing, 18-seat advantage in the Senate and 40-seat spread in the House provide the margins of majority. Reversing...