The recent tendency on this site to trash the democratic party's success in the 90s is both unhelpful to the party and completely lacking in historical analysis. Zell Miller-esque rhetoric has became fashionable here, describing the democratic party as a "national party no more."
We need to talk in terms of building on our gains, not trashing our successes.
Put it in perspective for a moment -- the voting patterns of the 2000 and 2004 election were not set in stone for ages, they developed by 2000 as a result of huge GAINS by the democratic party in the suburban regions of the country. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City in the 70s and 80s. Today, that's solid blue territory, but prior to 1992, it was a red zone. Through great effort, the Bill Clinton led democratic party succeeded in convincing ordinary middle class suburban families that their party is the democratic party.
It was quite depressing to be a democrat in 1992. We had not just lost national elections; we were completely trounced in 72, 80, 84 and 88. Our lone win, Jimmy Carter's 76 victory, was seen as a post-watergate fluke. Even with watergate and Ford's pardon of Nixon, Carter barely squeaked past Ford. By 92, the GOP's southern strategy had been cemented in place, so there was no chance of duplicating Carter's coalition of southern states. Mondale had won 1 state, Dukakis 10. The democrats had no base to build from in a national election.
The party leaders of today -- the people you love to consider stupid -- somehow turned that around. Clinton and many others convinced the public that the democratic party didn't merely care about people on welfare, but was the party best suited to deal with the stresses faced by the middle class.
Just consider New Jersey as an example. New Jersey is the ultimate suburban state, half NY suburbs, half Philly suburbs. Most people assume NJ is solidly in the dem camp today, like TX is solidly in the republican camp. But in 92, NJ was a solidly republican state. The republicans had not lost NJ since the LBJ landslide of 64.
Turning states like NJ into democratic strongholds was an astonishing democratic success of the 90s.
So yes, we should be building off our success. It will take effort and it can be done. If we can win handily in California, we ought to be able to win in places like Nevada, Colorado, Florida and even, gasp, Texas. If we can dominate the upper midwest we should be able to bring Ohio into the fold.
But there will always be swing states. The electoral college system makes it foolish to focus resources on small, solidly republican states like the plains states or the deep south.