I know, I know, it is early and too much can happen between now and November of 2008. In order to satisfy my sadistic streak, I just thought that I would give everyone a chance to beat up on me. Also, I posted this prediction over at Dave Wissing’s Hedgehog Report on one of his threads and loyalty demands that I do so here. Next week, I will follow up with Romney v Hillary then the week after with Rudy v Hill. This began as a response to MikeKS who is a frequent poster on Wissing’s site. Anyone who has read his posts knows how strongly partisan he is, yet even MikeKs concedes Hillary 247 electoral votes. All Republicans should be cringing in their collective boots.

Without further ado, and even though you did not ask for it, here is my official (albeit early) prediction should a Hillary/Thompson race occur:

Hillary - 341
Thompson - 197

My analysis is inline. I am prepared for some hatriolic (ht - Michael Smerconish) venom from within my own party.


In short, the United States will not elect another southern Republican in this cycle. Thompson will be too closely identified with President Bush and this will prove to be the veritable kiss of death. In anything, I am think I am being too optimistic with this prediction. Here is my breakdown for FDT and HRC with an asterisk indicating that the results could be competitive:

FDT
WV*
NC*
SC
GA
AL
MS
LA*
TN
AR*
MO*
IN
TX
OK
KS
NE
SD
ND
MT*
ID
NV
UT
AZ
AK

HRC
ME
VT
NH*
MA
CT
HI
RI
NY
PA
DE
MD
NJ
VA*
KY*
OH
MI
WI*
IL
MN
IA*
FL*
CO*
NM
WA
OR
CA

I am not just picking on Thompson. Of the 3 major GOP candidates I have all of them losing although Thompson yields the most unfavorable results for the Republicans. Some explanation is probably necessary for some of my picks and I fully realize that most people reading this site will strongly disagree with me. Please do not confuse my predictions with who I will support and vote for in the 2008 election. In this match up, as in all others, I would vote for the GOP candidate.

Already, I am counting NM and OH as blue. Despite the recent SUSA poll, which I think will prove to be an outlier, the GOP in OH has imploded. The Democrats have been more and more competitive in that state anyway and this state could have gone blue due to Bush fatique syndrome. Due to the shenanigans of the state GOP party, the Democrats do not even need that to win.

NM is going blue for a different reason. Basically Kennedy suckered Bush into supporting legislation for illegal immigration that has proven to be very unpopular within the GOP ranks. The irony is that the hispanic community is blaming the Republicans even though Bush was the biggest cheerleader for the legislation. CO has the same dynamic but to a lessor extent. CO is more conservative and could be a close race. In the end, if Thompson is the nominee, he will be closely tied to Bush which will result in another victory for Clinton.

VA is another huge problem for the GOP. The race could actually be a blow out for the Democrats. A very popular Democrat will be running for Governor, while the GOP has no strong candidates. Furthermore, the makeup of the demographics of the state is turning more liberal in the heavily populated northern counties. KY is also suffering from an unfavorable state wide race but they do not have the same demographic problem as VA. In the end, Bush fatique tips this to Hillary. MO and WV could be very competitve as well.

Florida is a state where I think Rudy would be strong whereas Thompson will not have a shot at winning. The snowbirds and transplants from NY, PA, NJ and CT are generally aligned with Rudy on both national security and social issues. FDT losses them on the social issues. With FDT as the GOP candidate, FL will not even be a close call.

I wish that I had better results for the GOP but this would not be worth anything if I provided an intellectually dishonest analysis.

The results will improve with either Romney or Rudy as the nominee, but in the end we all better get used to the term Madame (or Mrs. if you prefer) President.