Anti-Climacus

LINK: I note this for all you election 2004 nerds out there.

Semi-interesting notes: I ran my predictions (based on general statewide electoral trends, as I have intuited them) for who would win what state, and I came up with this:

Bush: 273
Generic Democrat: 265

So, naturally, all my Democratic friends are happy, because this means that they only have to win over a mid-sized state or a couple of small ones to win the election, right?

Wrong. Essentially, I got my numbers by giving every state where I think who wins in 2004 is not immediately obvious: Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and Minnesota.* to the Democrats. And I'm less than entirely convinced they can run the board.

*Why those four?

Michigan: Granholm won last year, sure, but not by a margin nearly as big as one would've expected based on the run-up to the election. Winning Michigan is a matter of (for the Democrats) raising turnout in Detroit and Flint or (for Republicans) raising turnout in Oakland County and the western part of the state. Needless to say, no one knows how that's gonna turn out until the actual election happens.

Pennsylvania: Democratic Governor, Republican Senators. Classic Democrats-in-the-cities, Republicans-in-the-country divide, except it's not clear based on electoral trends who has the advantage. If there's a Senate election next time around, this one could well tip Republican.

New York: New Yorkers have made quite the habit lately of electing relatively moderate Republicans to prominent offices. Bush can win 1. if he runs as a moderate, which would be easy if Howard Dean were the Dem. nominee, and 2. if the upstate vote turnout is reasonably high.

Minnesota: The DFL has always been something of an oddball in Democratic Party politics. Minus a charismatic internal leader who can help them get their act together, it's not clear where the votes will end up shaking out (think Norm Coleman and Jesse Ventura).