A new "Solid South" ?

[JNB]

  Nov 2004 is a lopng way away, and no one knows how the campiagns will turn out or what will happen between now and then, but here is what could come down.

   Howard Dean right now has the momentum and the only canidate that has the energised base and the rest of the feild is badly split up. If he gets the nomination, this is how things may turn out. For one, Dean will be easy to paint as a liberal elitist who does not understand the working class and traditional values. He will play well in areas that are allready Democratic, such as the major metro areas on the West Coast, and North Eastren corridors, but that will not play well in any of the South or the Midwest outside of the Chicago area and some university towns. Will the 04 election be a replay of 72? Dean will probably do a little better than McGovern did mainly because the major metro areas in the West Coast and NorthEast have far fewer residents who are conservative leaning now than they did in 72, but a replay of the 88 election where Dukakis was solidly defeated is a possibility. The main concern for the Dems is their ability to hold on to states such as IA, WI, MN, PA, and even to a extent MI, NM and OR in the face of a Dean vs. Bush election.

  As for the South, Deans numbers in 2004 could very well be worse than the numbers Dukakis had in 88.

[JNB]

   There are a few factors in play now that were not in play in 72 that would make a 72 style sweep a bit more difficult. For one, the suburbs you mentioned that lean GOP have had one of the biggest political changes in the 90s. The NYC suburbs at least on the presidential level lean Democratic, and even accounting for Gore overperformance in the 2000 election, the results in the NYC suburbs were not even close considering the history of them. The Philadelphia suburbs on paper have a slight GOP lean, and if the GOP get out the vote(GOTV) efforts are sucessful, they may get 52-55% in the surrounding congressional districts that Gave Bush only 47-49% in 2000, and this still will not counterbalence Philadelphias 80% vote for Gore. As for Chicago, its suburbs also have a GOP lean, but reduced by about 15% from how they voted in the 80s(50-55% now vs. 65-70% in the 80s), again a good campaign and solid GOTV efforts may boost the performance of Bush up to 5%, but that still would not erease the masive advantage Democrats will h ave in the City of Chicago, around 80%.

   That said, even if Dean does as well as Dukakis did in 88, winning around 46% of the vote and 10 states, the risks to Democrats down the ballot are far greater now than they were in the 70s and 80s. Unlike then, the GOP is far better funded and has far better local organisations to take advantage of such a opening.