That’s the thing isn’t it? The swing is not from some milquetoast corporatist credentialist like Obama to a militarist nationalist corporatist like McCain. It’s from fairly progressive/leftist people like Wellstone/Feingold to a Tea Party union-busting-at-any-cost’er like Walker. Wojtek suggested that a left/liberal candidate would get 22% of the vote. But Wellstone or Feingold (and I realise they are not entirely interchangeable) got more than that in those states. At this point there can be talk about Wisconsin and Minnesota’s history, etc… but I think that would be a bit “orthogonal" (as tech nerds like to say).
I do agree with Woj that the Right narrative has some natural resonance… they start off with that advantage. But it is not insurmountable, yes? I suspect it is not even that hard to counter or overcome. It took the genius of Obama to create what seems to be the emerging Republican (permanent :-)) majority.
—ravi