The GOP path to victory

[DS0816]

Republican path to the presidency is limited. The party has won the U.S. popular vote only once in the past two decades, and it was a percentage just under 51%, and by a national margin of 2.46% in the re-election of a GOP commander in chief (that was 0.40% above Jimmy Carter’s 2.06%, who won only one election as a party-pickup victor, in 1976).

I stand by my claim that we’ve entered, thanks to Election 2008, a realignment period favoring the Democratic Party.

In answer to this thread’s question, it’s simple: slight variation on W.’s 2000 and 2004 maps. (Please keep in mind: no one map has ever been duplicated.) The electoral vote-count is no great shakes — above 270 and in the high-200s; a really good year would be to hit 300.

Thank Richard Nixon for the “Southern strategy”! When a Republican wins the presidency, he does it the way the Democrats did in the late-19th century (and through the Franklin Roosevelt White House years): all southern states, border-souths. Add to it interior mountain west and plains states. When a Democrat wins the presidency, he does it the way the Republicans used to in the late-19th century (and through the Dwight Eisenhower White House years): all of the northeast (plus the six in New England, of course), the upper midwest, the mid-Atlantic, the pacific rim. Add to it choice few in the South.

What the two parties had, and will continue to have, in common are the presidential bellwethers of a given period. Former bellwethers are Illinois, New York, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, and California. (Some say Maine applied.) Right now are Ohio, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico in the top tier. Following are Iowa and, perhaps in decline, Missouri. Next are rising bellwethers Colorado and Virginia. And then there could be ones I haven’t mentioned.