User: The Big Cheese

Yeah I used to live in Georgia I was quite impressed with the gains he made there. The biggest surprise though would have to be in Cobb and Gwinnett county. When I lived there (About 5 years ago), those were widely considered the Republican stronghold of Georgia. Although he still lost both counties in 2008, he made huge gains in both as you can see from the map. Another surprise for me was his victory in Douglas county, that also used to be extremely conservative. Heh, I should have added in my new home state of Missouri since I guess you could say it's as Southern as West Virginia, Oklahoma, or Texas. In fact speaking of Missouri didn't Obama lose it by like a couple thousand votes or something? That must really bite :P.

Slightly off topic but if I were to guess which states will switch if Obama does well this would be my prediction:

West Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Montana, Arizona, Missouri, Possibly North Dakota

and I think Indiana will switch back to the Republicans. Just seems like it was just a one time thing to me. Could be wrong though.

Also check out this picture: http://img.coxnewsweb.com/B/03/48/88/image_7788483.jpg

Although I haven't voted in the poll, at least not yet. If I were to guess what will happen in 2012 in the South it would depend on a few things. Assuming Obama does a fairly good job, and the economy is nearly recovered (I doubt it'll be fully recovered by 2012, even if Obama's policies work.) I predict that the most likely new state to vote Democratic will be Georgia. South Carolina and West Viriginia may also vote Democratic, but I believe Georgia is in a better position. As for Texas, I see that extremely unlikely, I don't know why Howard Dean for some reason believes that they will win that state in 2012. I mean come on, how are they going to get nearly 1,000,000 more votes in just four years? I do realize that Texas will likely vote Democratic in the near future, but I can't see it happening anytime before 2020. Back to the subject of Georgia, the reason I believe it's most likely to switch in 2012 is due to its changing demographics. For example, the city of Atlanta is growing as are the suburbs, blacks are flocking there by storm, and the Hispanic population is also growing steadily. (Three factors favoring the Democrats) The only thing that could possibly cause issue is if the RNC is held in Atlanta, although I'm sort of skeptical that it will be. For one, traffic is horrible there and it seems more likely that it'll be held in Phoenix or Indianapolis. (Holding it in Atlanta may also portray the Republican party as a Southern only party.) At any rate, I believe the earliest indicators will come in 2010 when the governor's seat goes vacant. From what the polls say, apparently it's neck and neck right now in Georgia, but it still is very early. Speaking of governors, with Mark Sanford in trouble, perhaps that will be good news for the Democratic parties ambitions in South Carolina?

Anyways, assuming the opposite is true and the economy is in shambles in 2012, then I don't believe any new Southern states will vote Democratic in 2012. I also believe that Obama will lose North Carolina and Florida but will narrowly hang on to Virginia. Virginia is probably a safe state for the Democrats now.

Anyways I'd love to hear some other people's opinions on this subject. Tell me what you think. :)

Err, for some stupid reason my poll messed up and some entries got duplicated. Don't worry about this, I'll combine the votes when I update the poll. You can select either one of the duplicated entries, it won't skew the results. Also, I know a couple of famous people such as Merv Griffin have died since I created this poll. In the next revision, I will include them. If you selected other as your choice, please post the celebrity's name so that I can add your vote and that celebrity as a choice when I update this poll.

My vote is yes. No offense or anything, but is it that hard to spell obvious words correctly or use proper grammar? I mean, I can understand if people don't capitalize or punctuate correctly, as that can get annoying. But seriously, why is it that people manage to badly misspell easy words, are they just that lazy?