I wrote an article in February 2008 titled "The Only Republican Who Can Beat Hillary". That Republican was Duncan Hunter. Though the Democrat nominee turned out to be Barack, the points of that article would also have applied to him, and I still stand by my arguments. Hunter WOULD have beaten Barack not because of the issues of character, ideological purity, or the elusively vague trait of "electability", but because of the overlooked yet much more powerful factor that I call REGIONALITY. What was needed in that election was a candidate for the November face-off who could use REGIONALITY to turn a BLUE STATE into a RED STATE. Hunter could (and, I believe would) have turned BLUE California into RED California because he was FROM California. Regionalism causes the voters of a state to, 90% of the time, vote for one of their own for President. Thus, Nixon carried California in 1960, 1968, and 1972. Ronald Reagan carried California in 1980 and 1984. Imagine that -- liberal California went for Republicans five times. Hmmm -- do ya think that could be because Nixon and Reagan were FROM California?

Today, the same mistake is being repeated as Conservatives argue over which of the seven Republican contenders has the best character or has the best ideological purity or has "electibility". If we finally choose Newt Gingrich, we will repeat the "Old White-Haired Dude" joke from 2008. If we choose Mitt Romney, we will repeat the "Ineligibility" attacks from leftists when they realize that Mitt's father was born in Mexico and, thus, Mitt cannot meet the "natural born" requirement of Article 2, Section 1 of The Constitution. It is as if John McCain has been split into two men and his themes are dejavu all over again. We can avoid all this if we analyze each candidate's chances based on the more important factor of REGIONALITY. When we do this, we can quickly see that only TWO have any chance of turning a BLUE State into a RED one. Those two are Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. And of these two, Rick has the greater chance of taking his home State of Pennsylvania than does Mitt of Massachusetts. Let's look at each candidate against the set of five scenarios that were shown in a report by Ed Henry on Special Report With Brett Baier on Tuesday December 13th (watch the 2-1/2 minute video at Foxnews.com). These are scenarios one of which the Dems would need to secure in order for Barack to reach the needed 270 electoral votes for victory.

The scenarios start with the assumption that the 19 States won by John Kerry in 2004 will go to Barack in 2012 giving him 246 electoral votes. These are WA, OR, CA, HI, MN, WI, MI, IL, PA, NY, NJ, MD, DE, and all six New England States. The Repub at that point would have 292 votes. Scenario #1 -- "The Western Path" would require Barack to also take CO, NM, NV, and IA giving him 272 votes. Scenario #2 -- The Florida Path" would require him to add only Florida giving him 275 votes. Scenario #3 -- The Southern Path" would require the addition only of NC, and VA giving him 274 votes. Scenario #4 -- "The Midwest Path" would require the addition only of IA and OH giving him 270 votes. And, Scenario #5 -- "The Expansion Path" would require the addition only of AZ giving him 272 votes. These would ALL be RED states turned to BLUE. From studying the closeness of each of these scenarios, anyone can see that what we really need is to turn a LARGE BLUE STATE into a RED one.

Jon Huntsman cannot turn a BLUE to RED because his State of Utah is already RED. Michele Bachmann would not turn her BLUE State of Minnesotta RED because 1) it is too solidly liberal having the distinction of being the only State that never went for Reagan and produced Jesse Ventura and Al Franken, 2) she is a Rep from one very small district and not a governor or Senator, 3) she is a woman in a time of war (with Islam and the Left), and 4) she is very short. Ron Paul would not turn a BLUE to a RED because he is from TX which is already RED. Rick Perry would not turn a BLUE to a RED also because he is from TX which is already RED. Newt Gingrich would not turn a BLUE State to a Red one because he is from GA which is already RED. We are thus left with Romney and Santorum by the process of elimination. Both are from BLUE States. All of this analysis is, of course, based on isolating the factor of REGIONALISM and any of the candidates could possibly turn some BLUE State(s) to RED for other reasons, but I think the chances of that are so slim and the race will be so close that we MUST emphasize that a LARGE State must be turned in order to maximize the spread of votes and "not take any chances".

If Romney turns Massachusetts RED, he will pick up only 12 votes. That may not be enough if Barack wins some RED State large enough to offset those. But Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes. And, according to Ed Henry's report, that State is teetering on the fence between RED and BLUE. I believe that Rick Santorum will tip it into the RED and, thus, prevent Barack from ANY CHANCE OF WINNING by any of these five Scenarios. Do the math. And let's win next year's election based on MATH not EMOTION and infighting!

-- Ray Curtis, Houston, TX December 16, 2011