I totally agree on your dismissal of Clinton's "big state" strategy. Honestly, we could nominate a trained bear from the circus and still carry NY, MA and CA (unless we were running against Nixon or Raygun and all memory of the last eight years was erased from everyone's minds through a clever subliminal advertising campaign). She won these states, and good on her. But if you can't pick things up elsewhere you don't have much of a chance. As was demonstrated in 1972, you can't win the presidency on Massachusetts alone.