Please remember that you are choosing to read my opinions.

I've been hearing a lot of odd talk coming out of the spin rooms this morning about the election. I have to disagree with most of the conclusions people are trying to draw from the race so far.

One is that Barack Obama is too timid to take on McCain, because he isn't campaigning as aggressively (in the negative sense) as Hilary Clinton. This is a bad conclusion to make, because campaigning against your own party is much different than campaigning against a true rival. Obama has no real incentive to attack Clinton. I don't doubt that, when the time comes, Obama will do just fine pointing out the uselessness of McCain, who will just continue the current failed policies of Bush.

The other conclusion being drawn is that the states that Clinton is winning are the big states for voter turnout in the General Election. New York, California, New Jersey, etc.... The flaw in this argument is that these states are going to be taken by Democrats anyway, as usual. McCain doesn't stand a chance in certain states, just as the Democratic Nominee doesn't stand a chance in certain other states.

This list is my interpretation of the "red state vs. blue state" situation. It might not look exactly like other lists of red and blue states because I made this list myself. I've labeled them so they are fairly self-explanatory. I compiled this list for the general election, and while compiling it, I realized that certain states tend to be good at picking the winning nominee (at least since 1968), so I listed their predictive value as well. Whether or not there is any predictive value, I leave that up to you. I am personally undecided. But I plan on watching a few of the "great predictors" to see if they do the same this year.

However, I must note... most of the states that I list as "true swing states" have voted Republican in 2000 and 2004. While this denotes a "predictive" value, it also denotes a Republican leaning as well.

New Hampshire		leaning democrat (fair predictor)
New Jersy		Moderate Democrat
Florida		Republican Leaning Swing state (good predictor)
Mass.		Strong Democrat
Delaware		Strong Democrat
DC		Strong Democrat
Illinois		Strong Democrat
Vermont		Strong Democrat
Hawaii		Strong Democrat
California		Strong Democrat
Connecticut		Strong Democrat
Washington		Strong Democrat
Rhode Island		Strong Democrat
Maine		Strong Democrat
New York		Strong Democrat
Wisconsin		Strong Democrat
Maryland		Strong Democrat
Minnesota		Strong Democrat
Oregon		Strong Democrat
Michigan		Strong Democrat
Kansas		Strong Republican
Alabama		Strong Republican
Indiana		Strong Republican
Alaska		Strong Republican
Georgia		Strong Republican
Idaho		Strong Republican
Arizona		Strong Republican
Nebraska		Strong Republican
Montana		Strong Republican
Colorado		Strong Republican
North Dakota		Strong Republican
North Carolina		Strong Republican
Oklahoma		Strong Republican
Wyoming		Strong Republican
Virginia		Strong Republican
Utah		Strong Republican
Texas		Strong Republican
South Carolina		Strong Republican
Mississippi		Strong Republican
South Dakota		Strong Republican
Ohio		True Swing State (Great predictor)
Tennessee		True Swing State (Great predictor)
Louisiana		True Swing State (good predictor)
Missouri		True swing State (good predictor)
Kentucky		True Swing State (great predictor)
Arkansas		True Swing State (great predictor)
Nevada		True Swing State (good predictor)
Pennsylvania		Weak Democrat.
West Virginia		Weak Republican
New Mexico		Weak Republican (voted for D 2000, R 2004)
Iowa		Weak Republican, (fair predictor)

So as you can see, there are relatively few states that are likely to change the way they vote. In my opinion, Obama has a better chance of bringing in the undecided/independent votes, so he would actually be the stronger nominee against John McCain.

Comments?