So says Sean Quinn, unless the Republicans start nominating candidates who can win moderate and independent votes: which given the current composition of the Republican primary electorate they can’t.
Sean Quinn says that, against a standard “base” Republican candidate, Democrats now own 269 electoral votes.
* 77 EVs on the Pacific Coast (CA, OR, WA, HI),
* 117 EVs in the Northeast (ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, PA, MD, DC)
* 65 EVs in the Upper Midwest (MI, WI, MN, IA, IL),
* 10 EVs in the Mountain West (NM, NV)
So the Dems could lose Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina and Colorado (and fail to pick up increasingly-competitive Arizona) and still manage to throw the election into the House of Representatives. (Quinn doesn’t do the arithmetic on likely EV shifts due to the 2010 Census, which at a glance look as if they might favor the GOP.)
That means, says Quinn, that the Republicans need to nominate a candidate who can appeal to moderates and independents. But there’s no way today’s GOP can nominate such a candidate.
Ergo …
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
View all posts by Mark Kleiman