Staying at home in 2012, voting for Ron Paul or anybody other than Romney, is a vote FOR Obama just as surely as pulling the lever for him.

Watching presidential polls at this stage of the election cycle is a waste. All the Obama versus (pick a name) polls I’ve seen in the past year are a waste. They measure Obama versus a Republican as though they will be competing for popular votes nationwide. That’s bunk. Presidential elections are based on Electoral Votes by state, not national popular votes.

Remember Election 2000? Ignoramuses still abound on the Internet bleating that Gore got 5 million more votes than Bush. That’s useless comparison and a lie. As if it matters, the actual final popular vote was: Bush 50,456,002 and Gore 50,999,897, a difference of 543,895, a mere .5 percent of the 104,338,854 million votes cast (Nader got 2.9 million popular votes but zero EVs). Bush led Gore in the popular vote until California reported and Gore won there by 1,293,774 votes. California had 54 Electoral Votes in 2000 and the overall result would’ve been the same — 54 EVs for Gore — whether Gore won the state by 1 vote or 10 million.

What the ignoramuses can’t get their pitiful brains around is the Florida counts and recounts were not to decide the final tally of the nationwide popular vote but to see who won Florida and should be awarded Florida’s 25 Electoral Votes. In the end, SCOTUS left it up to Florida to resolve that question but ruled they had to use existing law and the Constitution to settle the matter. Once that ruling was made, Gore gave up. Bush won Florida by 537 popular votes and was awarded the state’s 25 Electoral Votes. Then, as now, it takes 270 Electoral Votes to win the presidency and Bush ended up with 271 versus Gore’s 266.

Election 2012

McCain lost to Obama, 173 to 365.

Here’s a list of red states (for Bush) in 2004 that turned blue (for Obama) in 2008. (EVs for 2012 — in parenthesis — have been adjusted based on the 2010 Decennial Census).

Virginia (13)
North Carolina (15)
Florida (29)
Ohio (18)
Indiana (11)
Iowa (6)
Colorado (9)
New Mexico (5)
Nevada (6)

Total up-for-grabs: 112 Electoral Votes. It doesn’t take advanced math to see that the 2012 GOP nominee MUST win the 2008 McCain states plus win back a combination of 2008 blue states that total 97 EVs to win in 2012 (173 in 2008, plus 97 = 270). There could be a tie at 169 each, which would send the question to the House where Representatives would vote by state to decide the winner. Any number below 96 (or a Democrat House in case of a tie) means another 4 years of Obama.

Even the most optimistic anti-Obama pundit believes Obama will win the same blue states that Kerry carried in 2004 (Bush 286 — Kerry 252), so to repeat and crystalize how steep the mountain is going to be in 2012: the GOP nominee must win 97 of those 112 EVs to beat Obama.

To emphasize, it’s useless to monitor nationwide polls that reflect popularity across state lines. The only useful analysis is to see how Romney is doing in the 9 “swing” states listed above. For instance, there’s no plausible scenario that Obama could lose if he wins Ohio and Virginia, or if he loses both but wins Florida.

If you’re an optimist and think the GOP maybe, might, could carry a blue state other than the 9 swing states, go to 270ToWin and tinker with the possibilities on the maps. Remember: any combination of 270 Electoral Votes wins.

Related:
• The poll to watch right now
• Doing the math for 2012

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 23rd, 2012 at 10:19 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.