Geopolitical
The “Solid South” is marked in concrete to Bush. Arkansas is the one “purple” exception… notice that Bill Clinton is shouting stuff from Arkansas. Florida is only party Southern, they say, so it doesn’t quite count: you drive north and you’re in Southern Georgia, you drive South and you’re in the sixth Bureau of New York. (If that’s code word for “Jewish”, well… there’s a reason Lieberman was picked as Gore’s running mate, and it wasn’t to excite the Unions.)
I’m guessing Virginia will be closer to Kerry than West Virginia. West Virginia was billed as an internal contest amongst a populace of “culturally conservative economic populists”. It appears that cultural conservatism has carried the day, and it seems it may have pretty permanently. That internal conflict shifts to Ohio for this political fight — where that Sinclair broadcast “Kerry: Honorary Member of the Viet Cong” (or whatever it was called) was supposed to have its biggest impact.
New Hampshire will likely swing Kerry’s way, which will cement something novel altogether: the solid Northeast. Toss in a solid blue Pacific Coast, and mark a whole terrain of people-less land through the West as solidly red and we get to brass tasks: a Southwest that the Democrats are counting on changing demographics for their political future and a Midwest that Republicans are counting on changing demographics for their political future. A V-Shape of Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and (when McCain can be tossed aside) Arizona. And an upper-crust of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Who the hell knows?