The 2010 Census

Looking at the projections for how the electoral college votes will be allocated for each state after the 2010 census, I think we have reason to be optimistic for the 2012 election regardless of what happens in the 2010 mid-term elections if the party can make even the slightest gains in the Hispanic vote (moving from the 31% that McCain won this year to the 35% that Bush won in 2000; I think we'll need a Ginsburg pre-election to step down in order to make moral issues a top three issue in the 2012 election to persuade Catholic Hispanics to vote on such issues if we are to get back to 40% of Hispanic support).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Census#Projections

States that were red this year or in 2004 are projected to gain a total of net 8 electoral college votes while states that have been blue the last two election cycles are projected to lose a net of 8 electoral college votes.

Texas, Florida, and Arizona are slotted to gain a total of eight electoral college votes.  Obama was unable to make any significant inroads among white voters in these three states, even though Bush wasn't on the ballot this year in Texas and McCain being on the ballot didn't seem to make much of a difference in Arizona considering that Bush performed just as well among white voters in Arizona in 2004.  Obama failed terribly with white voters in Florida.  A slight improvement with Hispanic voters would just swing certain states back to our side pretty easily.  Add in states such as Georgia and South Carolina, states where Obama lost fairly easily without McCain spending a cent despite Obama's maximization of the black turnout, along with Utah, and you have pretty easy electoral college gains that way.

The only hardcore red state that is losing an electoral college vote is Louisiana and the only hardcore blue state that is gaining an electoral college vote is Oregon.  Some hardcore blue states such as Obama's home state, New York, and California are losing electoral college votes.  A state such as Ohio losing two electoral college votes would also be beneficial to us if moral issues is not a top three issue considering that Ohioans are likely to respond well to Obama's big-government approach.

North Carolina is a gainer but will it be what Georgia was to Bill Clinton in 1996 in the sense that he won it in 1992 but lost it in 1996 (not that I want a repeat of 1996)?  Three states losing one electoral college vote are Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota; I've always thought that the best Republican we could nominate was someone who could turn Minnesota and Iowa into toss-up states because these states have a decent sized evangelical community and an anti-government/anti-tax streak except for farm subsidies.  Ironically, if Obama veers towards our side in terms of foreign policy, a strong anti-war third-party candidate could steal 1-2% of the vote from him or his turnout from liberals could be depresssed.

One would think that if Obama couldn't win Missouri in this climate, then he won't be able to win it in 2012 when he will be the one responsible for the economy if we play our cards right and learn how to manage the media.  However, Missouri could turn out to be what Arizona was to Bill Clinton in 1996.

Unfortunately, I think Indiana because of Obama's commitment to ethanol and farm subsidies and Virginia are here to stay as swing states.  Nevada and New Mexico may just be lost for a couple election cycles if we aren't able to make dramatic Bush-like gains in Hispanic support as McCain performed pretty damn well with whites in those two states and still lost by double-digits in both.  The key will be to make sure that North Carolina and Missouri return to "soft" red status by 2012 and hope that states such as Montana and Colorado get turned off by big government approach and that the anti-war segments in those two states lose a little bit of their fire in four years.