Now that Lord Kos's surge to a 48-state strategy is fully operational, try playing with this map, and seeing how easy, or hard, it is for a Democrat to win by losing both FL and MI. Anglachel did, and this was her conclusion:
I gave a short-hand explanation of the importance of four states in the general election: Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Have fun with the map trying to construct a win for the Democrats that has only two of those states in the blue column. If the two you pick are Ohio and Florida, the win is pretty easy. Take one of those two away, and the win gets harder. You have to win Pennsylvania if you lose Florida, and you are going to risk it if you lose Pennsylvania and Ohio, but manage to hold Florida and Michigan.
What is important is what other states you have to line up if you lose Florida. Even with Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, it is possible to lose the national election. And those scenarios presume you hold the west coast and every New England state, plus West Virginia and most of the upper midwest. Dems have to hold all of the upper midwest and win New Mexico if they don't get Florida.
Her bottom line:
In short, Obama wins the same states as John Kerry in 2004, plus New Mexico, while Hillary wins all of those states, plus most of what Bill won in his two elections.
Seems plausible to me.
Of course, I'm a racist old guy, and Anglachel's just a woman. So who are we to question the shiny happy Boyz?
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I did the same thing...
with the map at 270toWin sometime last week, as Eric and I have been flogging the theme from "The Shrinking Battleground" for quite some time now. I think it was what finally sent me over the edge on the disenfranchisement issue.
Throwing away the primaries in Florida and Michigan is throwing away the general election. I had planned to remain in the US through the fall to work on voter protection, but now it's clear we're committed to this path of snatching defeat from the hands of victory, I agreed to move to Geneva in August instead. I hope it'll be less painful to watch from the banks of Lake Leman.
Link?
You put 2 links to the 270toWin site, but no link to Anglachel's analysis. Thanks.