The next cluster is VA and NC. I don’t believe VA will go for Obama because it tends to go military red. Just my gut. But I think NC will be hotly contested. It’s got 15 electoral votes and changing demographics. That’s a bellweather.

The next cluster is the 3 SW states that have show signs of swingability. NV, NM, and CO. My personal opinion is that the swingability of these states may depend on VP choices, because McCain is from AZ and Bill Richardson, if chosen by Obama, could swing NM. Colorado seems like it might be willing to swing blue, but I don’t think that has happened very often so far. The other thing to not is that this whole cluster holds only 19 el;ectoral votes, so it’s not a treasure chest.

The big treasure chest sure seems to be the 4 swinging industrial/post-industrial midwest states:” WI, MI, IN, and OH. My gut says that IN is more red than swingy, and WI is more blue than swingy. MI is probably a bit more blue than swingy, too.

Even so, with 58 eelctoral votes in this region, it sure seems like the candidate who can make the best set of arguments to appeal to voters across this region is the one that will have one hand up and the other on the bible come 1/20/09. I’ll be watching the state polls at least as closely as the nationals. In order, the 3 most important seem to me to be OH, NC, and CO. Then MI, IN, NM, NV, and WI. I give everyone permission to ignore the pretense portion of the next few months where the GOP pretends it can contest CA and the dems pretend they can make noise in TX and FL, and so on. I mean sure, let’s see what unfolds, but pay closer attention to what the polls show than the spin doctors.

If I had to pick one issue for 2008 that will be big, it will be “what does a good blue collar american job look like in the 21st century?” Is that the right question? I dunno. But expect an awful lot of verbiage spent on “the good hard-working Americans who built this nation and who can not be deserted, etc, etc, etc. The big buzz phrases will be thing like “falling behind” stagnating wages,” “trouble to make ends meet” “soaring gas and food prices” and so on. That smells awfully democratic to me.