A Redder Shade of Purple

RCP notes it - putting the '08 GOP convo in Saint Paul might be not just part of an ongoing attempt to flip the upper Midwest to the GOP, but could also take T-Paw's act national:

But the big enchilada for the GOP is Minnesota. The Bush-Cheney ticket won 46% in Minnesota in 2000 and 48% in 2004. Governor Tim Pawlenty faces a tough reelection battle this year, but he's generally believed to have a slight edge. Assuming Mr. Pawlenty can take care of business this fall and remain reasonably popular through the summer of 2008, the 45-year old-will almost certainly be near the top of the short list for the eventual GOP Veep nominee.

Republican wins in the Midwest trio of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa would essentially force Democrats to have to flip both crucial battleground states of Florida and Ohio -- unless they were to make major inroads in the southwest quartet of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona (with 29 electoral votes).

And those inroads could happen. The four big western states are suffering from Vermont syndrome; fundamentally conservative states being overrun by refugees from the high taxes, high crime and inflated prices of their neo-socialist hellhole home states of New York and Massachusetts and/or California as the case may be (who nonetheless want to create the bureaucracies and tax structures that made their home states such messes to begin with...)

By the way, this is part of the fruit of the huge effort the MNGOP put into the '04 campaign (and the increased GOP vote tallies that resulted). In these sorts of things, patience is a virtue, and reward are played out over four to twelve year periods.

(Via Gary at KVM)

Posted by Mitch at September 29, 2006 07:09 AM | TrackBack