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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Ohio: Additional Thoughts

Posted by DavidNYC

Not much to add on Ohio, except one commenter notes that no Republican has ever won the Presidency without carrying Ohio. This indeed has been true since the birth of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln's election. I'm not sure how significant this is, though: Only three Democrats since that time have ever won without carrying Ohio: Kennedy in 1960, FDR in 1944 & Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892. The bottom line is that it's simply been historically difficult to win without carrying Ohio for candidates of both parties.

All this reminds me of an amusing article on ESPN.com which said that no team whatsoever could win the Super Bowl last season because of a variety of "rules" - e.g., no team that won exactly seven games in one season has won the Super Bowl in the next, no coach whose last name begins with the letter "C" has ever taken his team to the Super Bowl, etc. Eventually, this list of rules manages to cover all 32 NFL teams, ensuring, of course, that there can be no winner.

Obviously, some of these historical rules are silly, even if others have some merit. The ultimate point is that the past isn't necessarily prologue. After all, Gore very nearly won (or did win, if you prefer) without taking Ohio, and I think we could do it again. But as I said in my original Ohio post, though, I think the rule will hold true for the Republicans: I just don't see how they can win without Ohio.

(And in case you were wondering, Tampa Bay broke Rule #7 to win Super Bowl 37.)

Posted at 07:15 PM in Ohio | Technorati