Wasn't 1992 a realigning election?

[Mr.Phips]

No way 1992 was  realigning election.  Democrats actually lost ground in Congress that year and did so big time in 1994. 

[Mr.Phips]

Clinton picked up a number of states, but some of them had been only marginally Republican to begin with.  Dukakis nearly won California, Maryland, Illinois, and Pennsylvania - mainstays of the current Democratic coalition.  Clinton's strong showing in the South hearkened back to the Carter era and doesn't coincide at all with the states Obama won in 2008.

And more generally, Democrats had been doing well in the Northeast and the west coast for a while, so regionally it was merely the continuation of older patterns.

So I don't see 1992 as a realigning election.

Southern states like Kentucky and Georgia were probably won solely because of Perot. 

[Mr.Phips]

No it really wasn't. Maybe if the Democratic party had bucked the left rather than return to it's roots then it would have been a realignment. 

They sure tried bucking left.  Look at 1993-1994 and universal healthcare, gays in the military, gun control, a tax increase. 

[Mr.Phips]

You don't freakin get it.

No, you don't get it.  Outside of the Deep South, Wallace got his support from Labor, blue collar workers, immigrants, etc.  These groups were always strong backers of Hubert Humphrey.  They would have gone in large numbers to Humphrey, swinging multiple states.  In the South, these voters would have gone slightly to Nixon, maybe 40/30, with the remaining 30% or so just staying home.  You're attempting to relate anything in 1968 with 2008 is foolish, and makes little sense.  The states have changed drastically over the last 40 years, and saying that a state voted someway in 1968 because it is liberal/conservative now is just pointless.

Hmm...I was always under the impression that most of those labor, blue collar workers would've gone to Nixon without Wallace in the picture. I understand that they were Democrats, but they were socially conservative, and I think without Wallace, Nixon's law-and-order platform would've been appealing to them, especially during the turmoil of the sixties. I'm not saying that all Wallace voters would've gone toward Nixon, but I think a majority of them would have.

Wallace voters split differently in different parts of the country.  For example, in Texas and in the rest of the South, the Wallace voters would have almost certainly went for Nixon.   On the other hand, in California and the upper Midwest, many Wallace voters would have gone for Humpherey.