It's heartening to see once solid blue states like NJ, MI, MN, and HI in as toss-ups in the final few days of the election. It's an indication to me that the state polls that show the EV race so close are way off. Still, I believe that BC'04 must stick to their winning game plan and win the ground game in OH and FL.

I would love to see NJ go red, I think it’s better than a 50/50 chance, but I don't believe that Bush or Cheney need visit to make that happen. Mayors Koch and Giuliani, and especially Bernie Kerik, are more likely to swing the NJ undecided voters (including Dems for Bush) at this point.

9/11 is the driving force in NJ for this election in my opinion. More than anywhere else, NJ got to see how unserious the Democrats are concerning terrorism and security. They saw it recently with the actions of the disgraced Gov. McGreevey, appointing a man to the position of NJ’s homeland security director whose only qualification was that he was McGreevey’s gay lover.

They saw it after 9/11 when many citizens decided it would be a good time to buy a home defense weapon. They got a first hand look at the unbelievable hurdles and unnecessary burdens the democrats had put in place for a law-abiding citizen to purchase or own a weapon.

They saw it when the Dems tried to bash Bush over the precautionary alerts.

They see it when the Dems say the threat of terrorism is overblown (tell that to the many orphans and widows right here in NJ), yet we discover diagrams of NJ schools in the hands of terrorists in Iraq.

The voters in NJ get to see, day in and day out, how unserious the democrats are, and with these experiences in mind, cast a more critical eye on Kerry than the DNC would have imagined.

I certainly hope that Bush/Cheney is 100% focused on winning the electoral vote. Al Gore's mountain of popular votes in Calif. and N.Y. has not made him any less of a loser.

Is there any blue state where Bush will win fewer votes than he did in 2000?

Probably not. IL is the only one that comes to mind - and that is an aberration.

Remember, if Bush wins 'big', say, with 54% of the vote, he can stand up and say, "The country is united". He only has to say it once. The Democrats will spend the next 4 years choking on it.

Jim: There are a good number of states where Bush's percentage of popular votes may decline (even if actual votes increase because of higher turnout) -- NH, NC, VA, IL, IN, SC, CO, AZ, AK, even PA & OH come to mind immediately. Give me 270 electoral votes and they can wail as loud as they want about the popular vote.

I only wish that the Electoral College was even more skewed away from the big urban hothouses and toward the rural states.

I think NH would be the only other possibility.

OH is probably not as close as the media wants us to think. Bush will win more of the percentage in PA than he did 4 years ago - that seems obvious right now. The Carolinas will be about the same. AZ, AK, VA, CO, and IN should be about the same.

But these are 'red' states (except for PA). Bush's percentage will be higher in NY, NJ, CT, MD, MI (he might even win there, as in WI, OR, IA, and NM), and certainly CA. These numbers will bring him higher in the popular vote.

And Bush's numbers will be higher in LA, TN, and WV as well. The difference in 2000 was about 490,000 votes. He could make that up in CA and NY alone, without much trouble. I just don't see Kerry adding at those levels in any red state.

All that PV talk doesn't matter. Bush will win the PV. He risks losing the EV however, because he can't beat back the Surrender Senator in Ohio and Florida, which means that Kerry's lawyers will see to it that he wins those states (or that they are awarded to him).

If the nation suffers another election where the person who wins the popular vote loses the electoral vote, the country will suffer a severe crisis. Legitimacy is a huge issue. Even if Bush is the undisputed legal winner, most Americans will be extremely uncomfortable with it. The disparity smacks us in the face with what we've told our children how the country works.

And don't give me any bunk about Democratic whining. If Gore had lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote, the GOP would probably have abolished the electoral college by now and would have screeched just as loud, if not louder, as the Democrats did in 2000. I personally think they would have acted far worse.

Oh, goodie. Aother defense of the Dems behavior by saying the GOP would be worse if they were in the same position. Instead of hypothetical strawmen supported by personal opinion, how about, just once, a real, concrete example of how the GOP has acted worse than the Dems, eh?

"The disparity smacks us in the face with what we've told our children how the country works"

You mean the way that the Elders of Zion and Tri-lateral Commission met in Zurich and decided that it was the Republicans turn, well yeah I told my
children about that. Did you tell your kids something different?

Chris --

Remeber the talk in the days prior to the 2000 election was that Gore could win the Electoral College vote and lose the popular vote. There were a number of stories in the media about that, and the general tone was that it would be ironic, but hey, that's the system the Founding Fathers came up with, and if Gore wins that way the Republicans will just have to live with it.

I think the better analogy of how it may play out is comparing the Clinton military action in the Balkans with Bush's actions in Afghansitan and Iraq. When Clinton began the bombings, there were a few Republicans who spoke out against the action, but for the most part the party was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because that's the way the system always had worked with foreign policy. If Kerry was to win the EV and lose the PV, you'd have some shrillness on the GOP side about the results, but odds are the anger would be more about voter fraud than disatisfaction that the electoral votes didn't go their way this time.

>Probably not. IL is the only one that comes to
>mind - and that is an aberration.

Thanks to the Daley machine and creative vote-counting.

There are more dead than living voting in Illinois, and after you die you always vote Democrat.

Chris: A brief fisking:

"If the nation suffers another election where the person who wins the popular vote loses the electoral vote, the country will suffer a severe crisis."

It's happened several times before, and will happen again. The only "severe crisis" will be the one experienced by folks who can't read or understand the rules set out in the Constitution.

"Legitimacy is a huge issue."

Legitimacy is not an issue. See above.

"Even if Bush is the undisputed legal winner, most Americans will be extremely uncomfortable with it."

This sentence betrays your bias. I doubt you would feel the same if Kerry is the "undisputed legal winner," which is a real possibility. In any event, this is just your opinion, not that of "most" Americans. At various times since his election large majorities have approved of President Bush and supported his reelection.

"The disparity smacks us in the face with what we've told our children how the country works."

Evidently, you've been misinforming your children. The "one man, one vote" mantra is extra-Constitutional, and the electoral college is a good example of that fact.

Peter:

Bush will win both Ohio and Florida, so you can rest easy.