If Dean (or Clark) wins Florida, the rest of the south is irrelevant assuming all the Gore states are held. Dean should fight in Tennessee and Arkansas that I think Gore took for granted. Lousiana is in play for sure. And, WV, although a small state is worth a fight as well. Dems could easily pick that up again. It'll come down to the wire again so even a small state can make the difference.
Again, as I've said here before, three key things gave Bush Florida (besides the Sup Ct!):
- The Muslim vote all went GOP, some reports up to 50,000. Obviously just a few thousand would have made the difference and Clark and other Dems (including the DNC) have reached out to Muslims and all indications are that there will not be a straight line GOP vote this time around.
- Voter error: Like it or not, a few thousand of our folks screwed up. I'm not even talking about the goofy ballots where Buchanon got alot of votes in the heavy Dem county. I'm talking about thousands of people properly selecting Gore and then in addition writing Gore's name on the ballot, rendering it invalid. Hopefully we'll have a lot less of that this time around.
- Nader. If (1) and (2) above change our way, Nader/Greens are irrelevant.