Vodkapundit Stephen Green has done a two–part early look at the general election map, assuming John McCain and Barack Obama are the nominees.
Green colors 41 states as solidly Red or Blue, for a virtual tie of 229-227. he then lays out a best-case scenario for McCain of 311-227 electoral votes and a best-case scenario for Obama of a 309-229 win.
I think Green’s general observations are sound, although data-free. Granted, polling data this early in the cycle is not worth much, but it is something. For example, Green writes:
Ohio typically is a swing state and, if you’ll recall, won the 2004 election for Bush in the wee hours after the polls closed. Yet already I’ve called it for the Democrats. Well, that’s just the way it’s going to be. The state Republican party is more or less destroyed  and economics and demographics have moved Ohio leftward these last four years. Please don’t shoot the messenger. And the only reason New Hampshire isn’t Mood Indigo (â€Âbluer than blue can beâ€Â) is because McCain is the likely nominee. They love McCain in the Granite State, and no other Republican stands a chance there.
Green may be from Ohio and basing that prediction on personal observation. This month’s polls show Ohio as a toss-up. As for the OH GOP having taken a beating on corruption issues, I agree. Moreover, iirc, Dems like Strickland and Brown won statewide in 2006 with approximately 60% of the vote. But that — and the other factors Green cites — makes the tight poll numbers all the more interesting.ÂÂ
In the Democratic primaries, Obama has tended to do better in states with either few blacks or lots of blacks, and worst in states with moderate black populations. Thus, it is interesting that recent polls have McCain and Obama within margin of error in states like Missouri and Pennsylvania, and within two points in Massachusetts. After the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, we may have a better idea as to whether the anecdotal data of Obama not playing well with blue-collar white men might be a factor in these states.
I would also add the most recent polls have it as a toss-up in Virginia, which Green picks for the GOP. Green also correctly has New Mexico as a toss-up, though I wonder whether McCain living next door might not be the factor that ekes out a win there. Also, Green has Oregon as solidly Democratic — and that would be my gut reaction also — the Rasmussen poll showing Obama +9 was a less-reliable one-day poll, while the three-day SUSA poll has it a toss-up. And while Green has the upper Midwest as a toss-up, the polls currently favor Obama beyond the margin of error.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
Update: Both Chris Bowers and I have been puzzled about the poll numbers from Massachusetts.  It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Bay Staters — having already seen Hopeyness and Changitude: The Deval Patrick Story — are not clamoring for a double-feature.
He’s right about the Ohio GOP, sadly. The fact that a spineless bimbo like Voinovich is still in office and that even a solid “meh” like Mike DeWine went down to Sherrod Brown (co-author of the Obama “hey, let’s give preferential governmental treatment to those companies we deem patriotic!” plan) should tell you something.
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Karl……i totally see PW evolving from anti-McCain to anti-Obama.
How can anyone be anti-Obama? That is like being anti-hope. Anti-happiness. Anti-changeyness. Anti-pie.
RDub – Funny how the Dems want to categorize some companies as patriotic, but at the same time, when someone like the telecoms actually does something patriotic, at great risk to themselves, they are evil. Their standards, they are odd.
Nishi, I’d guess PW was congential anti-Obama all along. With a nervous tic at any mention of McCain.
Why not? They’ve swapped alleles on occasion.
serr8d – Speak for yourself. I ain’t swappin’ alleles (gotta be a French word) with anyone round these here parts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just do to swing in the same direction as the Gleenwaldians.
I love it. I just googled Gleenwaldian, and it is there !
You forgot the kittens and the fluffy bunnies. Never forget the fluffy bunnies.
And kites. There were kids flying kites in the streets of Baghdad before W came along, and Barry Hussein will return those brown people to what they yearn for. Wood chippers.
nishi,
If you had been following throughout the primaries, yould see that I have been critical of pretty much everyone, but certainly Paul, Thompson, Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Clinton and Obama.
Obama is the big newsmaker at the moment, so there will probably be more bloggable items about him.
This particular post, however, is just calling races as I see ’em — including pro-Obama in the upper Midwest. The update has a little snark, but I really was a little puzzled over the Mass polling, because it’s a state that looked to be close to a zone where Obama should do well (check the Brendan Nyhan link, which has a scatter plot).
Also, I should make clear that I am very much a guest. What PW “is” is at Jeff’s discretion, and he’s no fan of anyone in the race.
Steve Green lives in Colorado. But he’s a big Reds fan, so…wait, what was the question again?
No matter. YES WE CAN!
hehe, sry Karl..i was gone for quite a while an i landed back here in the midst of jeff’s mccain mutiny.
a sampling bias problem i guess.
your political posts are exquisitly detailed, elegantly reasoned and thoughtful.
jeff is the mad artist in the tower that rips up our neurons everyonce inna while.
a perfect symbiosis.
A Reds fan? I didn’t know there were any of them left …
The reasons to hate McCain just keep piling up.
[…] that this phenomena has been little covered by the establishment media, though I noted it about six weeks ago, based on work by Jay Cost, Brendan Nyhan and Kevin Drum. Sirota implicitly explains why this is […]