Interesting observations by CNN's Jeff Greenfield

[question everything]

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Wolf, the Democrats' capture of both houses of the Congress was, of course, the big election news. But that has left another important story under- covered. What happened at the state level? The results at the grassroots, in fact, hold real significance for the political future.

Democrats picked up governorships in six states, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Arkansas, Ohio, and Colorado. They did not lose a governorship anywhere. And, among the 50 state legislatures, Democrats won more than 320 seats, and took full control of 10 legislatures. Here is what this means. Before Election Day, Republicans controlled 20 legislatures, Democrats 19, and 10 were split. Nebraska has a nonpartisan one-chamber system. Now Democrats control 24, Republicans 16, and nine are split.

The most obvious significance is that the states draw district lines for the U.S. House of Representatives. After Republicans won full control of the state legislature in 2002, they redrew lines to give the GOP five more House seats. And, if we look at where the Democrats gained, the meaning of these results deepens. At root, Democrats gained just about everywhere, except the South, including regions that we think of as solidly Republican. In New Hampshire, the last Republican holdout in New England, Democrats not only won both U.S. House seats, but took both houses of the state legislature. Iowa and Minnesota have gone Democratic. And New Mexico and Colorado legislatures remain Democratic.

And even where they did not win control, Democrats made gains, in Missouri, Arizona, Kansas, Idaho, and Ohio. The significance is that most of these gains have come in states that have been an indispensable part of the Republican bloc in election years. In two elections, for instance, President Bush lost only one state, New Mexico, barely in 2000, in all of the Great Plains and interior West. So, if people there have begun to be more comfortable in choosing Democrats at the grassroots, it suggests that the playing field may be expanding, or at least that the several dozen electoral votes the GOP has more or less taken for granted may be in play in 2008.

GREENFIELD: These results could affect the early maneuvering for Democratic presidential hopefuls. A candidate with a more centrist message, say, an Evan Bayh or a Tom Vilsack, could well point to these results and ask: See what might happen if you turn to someone like me, instead of, say, a senator from -- oh, I don't know -- New York.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/16/sitroom.01.html (and scroll down)

[bleever]

1. Nominated, for the

look at how things shifted on the state level. Serious reason for hope and confidence, and knowledge of where confidence and caution should temper each other.

[Carla in Ca]

2. Good post. The successes at the state level

will be just as important. Here is another perspective, from a post I wrote yesterday:


historically the party that controls the most governorships has the advantage in Presidential elections. If you want to think about it in terms of electoral votes, Democratic governors are in place in states that combined will have 295 electoral votes, up from 126.

Ah, the wisdom of a 50-state strategy

[progressoid]

3. He was making sense until he brought up Vilsack and Bayh - blech

But the rest is important for a K&R