Redrawing the Red-Blue Map

I referenced this in a comment. This is an interesting speculation from Brian Carney in the OpinionJournal Political Diary today:

The prospect of a 2008 presidential contest between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani would, if it came to pass, have some interesting implications for national politics next year. In particular, Mr. Giuliani is currently outpolling Mrs. Clinton head-to-head in New York and New Jersey, putting into play two states that have anchored the map of "Blue America" since the 2000 election. Pennsylvania, which voted for the Democrat in the past two election cycles, also polls narrowly in favor of Hizzoner.

On the other side of the ledger, there are reasons to expect Mr. Giuliani to do less well than President Bush did in the Rocky Mountain States and the Southwest. One big wildcard here is California, where no good interparty polling on head-to-head matchups seems to be available yet, but where Mr. Giuliani's reputation for social liberalism -- a reputation he is currently running away from -- could conceivably put that state back into the swing category.

With almost two years to go, much of this could change. But the early polling suggests that on Election Night 2008, the constellation of red and blue states may look quite different than it has in the previous two cycles. This has ramifications for where candidates spend their time and their money in the coming campaign. It also means the big media markets on the coasts will get a lot more candidate attention than they have in recent contests. Expect to hear more soon about the death of the old red state/blue state trope as the battlegrounds shift for '08.

UPDATE: Noemie Emery at The Weekly Standard has a longer article on this topic: The Rise of The Metro Republicans

Politics Posted by jk at February 16, 2007 5:33 PM