Oliver Willis, January 26, 2008:

I've pushed the idea for some time that in addition to the Democratic advantage we're likely to see this fall thanks to the Bush era, there is also an untapped black vote that will materialize if Sen. Obama is the nominee. Also, as 2006 has shown us, thanks to the incumbent party's zeal for immigrant-bashing, the hispanic numbers from 2004 are likely to show up as a historic anomaly in favor of the Republicans. So, consider the following swing states in 2004 that went for Bush:

Iowa, Bush, 0.67%
New Mexico, Bush, 0.79%
Ohio, Bush, 2.11%
Nevada, Bush, 2.59%
Colorado, Bush, 4.67%

I can see no reason for those states not to go Democratic. The most pro-Bush of those states, Colorado, is in the middle of a red-to-blue conversion already. In addition to the existing Democratic base vote, we're likely to see independents decisively go Democratic, as well as Hispanics coming home and a surge of brand new black voters if Obama is the nominee. I don't even know if having Arizona-based McCain as the GOP nominee will be enough for them to stop the bleeding in those southwestern swing states.

Oliver has a map on his post that shows his math for a Democratic Electoral College win. Democrats can win with some room to spare from his analysis.

The other thing that Oliver did not mention is that Ohio is HURTING, almost as badly as Michigan is. Northwest Ohio is more or less oriented towards Detroit for good or for ill and Cleveland is in a major housing slump. Attorney acquaintances have shocked me with their descriptions of sagging single family home prices, even below the Baltimore region's prices by a significant margin. There are a lot of angry, tired and frankly politically vengeful people there including a lot of union members who voted for Bush and now regret it. Plus the GOP apparatus suffered a state-level electoral catastrophe there in 2006. Ohio is not culturally sapphire blue but will probably vote that way.