The Washington Post has a nice little interactive map of the Electoral College. You can play around with giving each state to either party and view the results.
Interestingly, Obama and Clinton are exactly tied in the number of wins for states that the Post considers swing states. Both have won 5.
Swing State Tally
New Hampshire - Clinton
Virginia - Obama
Ohio - Clinton
Florida - Clinton
Minnesota - Obama
Iowa - Obama
Missouri - Obama
Colorado - Obama
New Mexico - Clinton
Nevada - Clinton
If you start with the swing states option except giving South Carolina to Barack, then the only swing states Barack needs are Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri. The Republicans can win all the typical battleground states and still loose.
If you start with the swing states option, then give Obama all the swing states where he has won the primary, he wins the electoral with 288. If you do the same for Clinton, she wins with 299.
So what’s going to actually happen? Here’s what I settled on for my prediction. Basically it’s Obama taking all the swing states minus Florida, and I gave Obama South Carolina since it’s 55% black and 90% of them voted for him in the primary.
Since there’s no born-again christian running, hell Barack has talked more about religion than Mc Cain so far, I could see Obama taking a couple of those southern states as well, the ones where Huckabee won the primary. The Pat Robertson voters may just stay home out of spite since there’s no anti-abortion candidate.
It would be nice if Florida and Ohio didn’t matter at all this time. Those states have gotten a bit narcissistic after the previous two elections.
And forget Rev. Wright, this has to be the most disturbing youtube video of this campaign.