In order for us to win in the fall, the democratic ticket has to carry 3 or 4 out of the 5 following states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, and/or Virginia.

Of course, on the top of these 3 states, the democratic ticket has to carry the traditional democratic electoral map composed of Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Michigan, Illinois, New Mexico, California, Oregon, and Washington. The sum of the electoral votes when we add all the traditional states of the democratic electoral map is 212 electoral votes.

If we add Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and Florida, the democratic ticket reaches 304.
If we add Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia, the democratic ticket reaches 277
If we add Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Florida, the democratic ticket reaches 291
If we add Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, the democratic ticket reaches 271
If we add Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, the democratic ticket reaches 280
If we add Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida, the democratic ticket reaches 273
If we add Missouri, Florida, Ohio, the democratic ticket reaches 270
If we add Missouri, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, the democratic ticket reaches 283

As you see, in all these scenarios, the democratic ticket reaches 270 electoral votes and wins the presidency. However, in all these scenarios, the democratic ticket has to win a combination of 3 or 4 states from the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Virginia and Florida. What is common in these states is that they have a diverse combination of demographic groups: elderly voters, rural voters, urban center voters, African-American voters, Latinos/Hispanic voters, college graduate voters, non-college graduate, blue collar voters (low income), white collar voters, and young voters.  Senator Obama has consistently showed that he could not carry the blue collar/non-college educated, rural, elderly, women, and Latinos/Hispanic demographic groups with any substantial margin. Senator Clinton has also showed that she could not carry the young, white collar, African-American, urban center, and college educated/white collar demographic groups with any substantial margin either.

Let us take Missouri as an example to illustrate what I am saying and put it in stark terms. Senator Obama won the urban centers, the African-American and the youth vote. Senator Clinton won every single rural county (some with huge margins of more than 30 points), the women votes and the elderly. The result of that primary was almost a tie. Senator Obama squeezed a win by less than 1 percentage point. In the general elections, this scenario is most likely going to happen again and Senator McCain is going to be very competitive in the urban centers like St Louis and Kansas City. If Senator McCain could narrow the margin of victory of Senator Obama in the urban centers, he could carry the state; and he could do that if women, the elderly and the blue collar voters in the urban center stay home. A small drop in the turn out of women and the elderly (because Senator Clinton is not on the ticket) will be lethal for Senator Obama. The same thing could happen to Senator Clinton. If there is a small drop in the turn out of African-Americans in urban centers (because of Senator Obama is not on the ticket) and she would lose Missouri to Senator McCain.

What happens in Missouri could happen in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The job of Senator McCain is to narrow the margin of victory of Senator Obama in urban centers and sweeps the rural counties if he faces Senator Obama. If he faces Senator Clinton, he would try to win some urban center by banking on a low turn out of the African-American voters and be somehow competitive in the rural counties and he could win those states too.

Let us look at Florida, which is a very tricky state for Senator Obama. In order to win Florida, Senator Obama needs to have a high turn out among women, elderly, Latinos/Hispanics, and African-Americans. Senator Obama can win Miami-Dade, Broward, Collier, and Monroe County (although Collier and Monroe counties are not heavily populated counties). He could be somehow competitive by narrowing McCain's margin of victory in Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties. He will lose by a large margin the pan-handle and the corridor because those areas are populated by conservative, bible thumbing, and gun-carrying demographics. So the battle in Florida will be in Hillsborough County, Pinellas County, Pasco County, Manatee County and Sarasota County. If you know anything about Florida, you would know that these counties are heavily populated by the elderly. The elderly electorate in Pinellas County, that is the city of St. Petersburg, is around  45%, in Hillsborough County it is around 39% (these are numbers from the 2000 campaign so I expect them to go up a little bit). The majority of the elderly population in Florida is women. Women represent more than 60% of those who are 65 years old and older. Again, Senator Obama's numbers with this demographic have been consistently awful. If there is not a heavy turn out of the elderly demographic in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota Counties, Senator Obama will to lose Florida. Moreover, Senator Obama's numbers with the non-Cuban Latinos/Hispanics have not been that great either, and Senator McCain carried the non-Cuban Hispanic group by a margin of 4 to 1 in the Florida republican primary. Thus, based on these numbers, Senator Obama cannot carry Miami-Dade and Broward countries with a huge margin, which would complicate the math even further for him and facilitate a McCain win in Florida.

Why am I not talking about the youth vote? Well, based on previous studies of electoral turn out, the youth vote has never been a serious factor and it has never materialized. I worked in the 1988 campaign and everyone  was expecting a huge turn out of young folks; it did not happen. The same thing was said about the 1992 campaign and it did not happen again. However, the only demographic groups that have always turned out and faithfully handed victory after victory to the democratic candidates have been the women's vote and the African-American vote followed closely by the elderly. Check the National Election Survey that compiled and study turn out by income, age, gender, race and so forth and you would notice that the so-called gender gap has been the saving grace for the democratic party.  It handed the presidency to Clinton in 1992 and 1996. It limited the victory of the republican in 1994 and defeated Newt Gingrich in 1998. It handed the Congress to Nancy Pelosi in the last elections and so forth. Women vote has always been the vote that pushed the democrats over the finishing line.

In conclusion, we need a presidential ticket that would turn out women, African-Americans, Latinos/Hispanic, elderly, and blue collar voters to the polls by the truck loads. Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama is the only way to do it. No disrespect to Senator Webb or Governor Richardson or Kathleen Sebelius. There is no track record that they can deliver the states that I cited above. Senator Webb can deliver Virginia, but he cannot deliver Missouri or Florida or Ohio; plus he has problem with women. Governor Richardson can deliver Florida, but I don't think he can deliver Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia, and Ohio, plus he is awful on the stump. Governor Kathleen Sebelius is just not up to task. I am pretty sure that she cannot even deliver her own home state of Kansas, never mind bring Missouri, Ohio or Florida to the democratic column; plus she suffers from a severe case of lack of charisma and as my wife puts it "she has as much charisma as a zucchini."

I want to win the White House and I want to see a democratic president in the Oval Office. I think both candidates are great. I think both candidates have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the strengths of one candidate cancel out the weakness of the other. I think that Mario Cuomo is absolutely right. He knows more than anyone here the dynamics of electoral politics and what is necessary to win in November. I think that the only way to put the bad blood behind us and seriously unit the party to bring about a SURE victory in November is to have both candidates on the same ticket.  

For those who are against this and not happy about it and for the naysayers, I will tell you, urge you, encourage you, to go vote for McCain. I will even pay for the cab that would drive you to your polling station on November to vote for McCain because I know that victory will be ours with such a ticket. If you do not want to vote for McCain and still bitch about such a ticket, I will tell you to grow up because this is politics.