“The map does look a lot like 2004,” said longtime Democratic strategist Jim Jordan, likening the coming presidential race to the clash between President George W. Bush and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. “It does feel like back to the future. We’re going back to political equilibrium.”
Democratic consultant Paul Begala noted that of the eight states that went from red to blue between 2004 and 2008 on the presidential level, Democrats won either the governor’s race or a Senate race in just two of them — Nevada and Colorado — during the past two years. Combined, those two are likely to deliver just 15 electoral votes in 2012.
“If Obama holds the Kerry states and carries only the states in which Democrats prevailed in 2010, he loses,” Begala said.
What many in the party believe — and more now are willing to voice publicly — is that 2008 may have been a referendum on President George W. Bush and that Obama’s victory was owed in large part to exhaustion with the outgoing administration.
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