Do you think Romney needs a Southern running mate?

[pbrower2a]

1.  Of all religious groups in America, Evangelicals are the least bigoted.

Debatable.

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Wishful thinking. Mitt Romney needs every one of those 180 electoral votes between the Potomac and the Rio Grande and he must be able to take them for granted if he is to have a chance. If President Obama wins even Arkansas or West Virginia (chosen for small number of electoral votes)... it is over. He also has to win Colorado, Missouri, and Ohio to have a meaningful chance of winning.  

Virginia looks like about a 60% chance of a win for the President. Florida and North Carolina are legitimate tossups.    

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Here's the big point: if Mitt Romney has to solidify his hold in the South except in Florida, North Carolina, or Virginia, then President Obama is on the brink of a landslide analogous to Eisenhower in 1952 or 1956. Texas or the five states that Clinton won  twice but Obama got clobbered in in 2008 make the difference between about 410 and 450 electoral votes. That's not to say that that will happen unless Mitt Romney utterly collapses as a campaigner.

Face it: take only the states that both Al Gore and John Kerry won in 2000 and 2004 and President Obama has 242 electoral votes right there. Nothing indicates that any one of those states or DC is in play.  Add New Hampshire and New Mexico as two other likely Obama blowouts and the President needs only 18 more electoral votes for a tie in electoral votes and 19 for an outright win. There's not much wiggle room if you consider the following states the swing states of 2012: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia. These states are diverse enough that there is no particular appeal that can work in enough of them that won't also start making some of the now-solid Obama states vulnerable. In short that means that Mitt Romney would have to be a stronger candidate nationwide.

If you want to reduce winning to random chance, then President Obama has 19 ways to win:

1     FL
2    OH   +    NC
3    OH      +    VA
4    OH     +    MO
5    OH      +    CO
6    OH      +    IA
7    OH      +    NV
8    NC      +    VA
9    NC      +    MO
10    NC   +    CO   
11    NC   +    IA
12    NC    +   NV
13    VA      +   MO
14    VA      +   CO
15    VA    +   IA
16    VA    +    NV
17    MO   +    CO
18    MO   +    NV   +  IA   
19    CO   +    NV   +  IA


Basically, Florida alone; one of either North Carolina, Ohio, or Virginia, and anything else or the more likely combination of Colorado, Iowa, and Nevada. That's before I even discuss states like Arizona, Georgia, and Indiana in which Obama victories imply the winning of a raft of other states.

There are seven ways in which Romney can win, but those absolutely require him to win Florida and Ohio. Those have so many required contingencies that the chances of any one of them is slight.

 

[pbrower2a]

Gosh a lot of people have fantasies that Obama can win some Southern state(s).  I guess those blowout primary wins in West Va. and Arkansas have them excited.  (Seriously, do any of them even read the elections results?)

Aside from Florida, Georgia (maybe), North Carolina, and Virginia -- no.  I said that if Mitt Romney had to do anything to solidify support in the South he was losing, and that if he lost any former Confederate State, then he was going to lose no matter what VP nominee he chose. The only reason for Mitt Romney to choose a Southern candidate as VP is that that nominee is for that person's political savvy and ideological concurrence.

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The Tea Party types are really, really bad.

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The North can support a reactionary from its own turf, but not from the South. It can vote for a Southern liberal, populist, or moderate.  Going with a Southern reactionary is a sure way to alienate Northerners in states on the borderline.