Lost in all the shuffle, on February 5 was one contest which neither Obama nor Clinton could really afford to lose if history is any indication. There is ONE only ONE state that has voted for the eventual Democratic nominee each and every time from 1972 through 2004. Anyone care to guess which state?
For the answer see the first comment where the tip jar is:
Remarkably as ? goes so goes the nation in the Democratic Party!
I have not seen this information anywhere, I gleaned it from looking at these
wonderful maps on geocities.
http://www.geocities.com/...
(scroll down their site to see previous cycle results)
The geocities maps are a blast and lets one see how the same state can go from Wallace in 1972 to Jackson in 1988 (Michigan).
Reagan 76 & Obama 08
I was trying to see whose state wins in the past matched up with Obama and Clinton's wins this time around. The most startling map to map similarity was not between two democrats. No, the most interesting comparison in states won is between Ronald Reagan's states won in his 1976 battle versus Gerald Ford and Obama's in 2008. Except for a few glaring differences the (southwest) Obama and Reagan's states are the closest of anyone's! Clinton 08 captures many of the same states as Ford did in 76 against Reagan.
One other thing you will notice from these maps is how back in the old days multi-candidate fields produced muti-state winners. In other words, the number of DIFFERENT candidates who actually win primaries or caucuses is dwindling. The modern nominating process does most of its winnowing in iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina so by the time most states vote only a few candidates are viable.
In 1976 (9) different dems won contests in 2004 only four did and those were pretty much candidates winning their home states--VT Dean; Carolina's Edwards; this year only two will.