Red States Swing with Edwards.

Red States Swing with Edwards.

....Edwards also outraised both Clinton and Obama in the "red" states. (Here I'm defining red states as the 31 states whose electoral votes went to Bush in the 2004 election.)

I figured this out after I saw a state-by-state breakdown of first-quarter campaign receipts posted on the USA Today web site. It looked to me like Edwards' numbers in the "red" states were very high. I wanted to confirm it, so I did the math.

Here are the totals from "red" states:

Edwards: $5,968,936 (or about 43% of his total)
Clinton: $5,698,201 (or about 22% of her total)
Obama: $4,989,496 (or about 19% of his total)

<snip>

Although Clinton and Obama outraised Edwards overall, they each raised only about one fifth of their totals from the 31 "red" states (three fifths of the number of states). Edwards raised more than two fifths of his total, or a bit less than half, from the same 31 states.

<snip>

Those are a lot of numbers, but what do they mean? It seems to me that they mean that Edwards' message appeals to people across the political spectrum, and that he is the best Democratic candidate to compete in all 50 states. If you like Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy, in other words, you'll love Edwards.

There are a lot of reasons for this.

A Democrat without a Southern accent has not won the presidency since 1960. It's possible the dynamics that have caused this 47 year trend have changed in the past 2 years due to the extraordinarily weak performance of the Bush administration, but it's likely they haven't.

Edwards is also courting rural voters. His rural recovery agenda is addressing the concerns of rural voters that have not been addressed by the other candidates.

Edwards' widespread appeal is interesting, because most people watching the race consider him to be the most progressive of the major Democratic candidates. It seems counterintuitive, then, that he would also have the most appeal in "red" states. The secret seems to lie in his values, his honesty, and his populism, not to mention his accent.

As others have noted, because of Edwards' crossover appeal, this time around, the most progressive candidate may also be the most electable candidate.

I think all of this should be a source of pride to Democratic voters in the "red" states. From Alaska to Texas, and from Nevada to South Carolina, Edwards is the candidate who can make the case for the Democratic Party. As chuckles1 pointed out, in 2008, North Carolina may just be the swingiest of swing states. Native son John Edwards will help turn it blue. In fact, with Edwards as the nominee, we Democrats may as well consider all of the red states fair game.