This post results from me playing around with the EC map at 270toWin.com

The 2004 election proved to be the high water mark for the post-Reagan Republican Party, if you count the 1988 election as "Reagan Era" (which I think, given the 1992 results is a fair judgment). In Dubya's fall, we sinned all, of course but at least since then actual insanity only seems to have a working majority in the US electorate when the voter turn-out is under 40%. So now I'm thinking about 2012. In the weeks preceding the Mayan Apocalypse, how well does Barack Obama gotta do to ride out the end of the world with relative smile on his face?

His first election was pretty much a measurement of how happy Americans were with being governed by lunatics. The Electoral College said Americans preferred sanity 365 to 173. The popular vote said it was a 52.9% to 45.7% preference, but no one cares what the popular vote thinks. I mean, come on. Still, this comfortingly lopsided 2008 victory was produced by the president flipping a number of states from them to us when compared to the 2004 high water mark. And those states were...?

In the west, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico went from Bush 04 to Obama 08

In the midwest, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa switched

In the south, Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia switched

And that's how Dubya scraped out his 286 vote EC victory... just 17 electoral votes over a dead tie.

So the question I'm asking in this thread is: "How well does the president stand in the states he flipped 2½ years ago?" Also, are there any surprises out there? That is, states that stayed put between 2004 and 2008 that may yet flip, like New Hampshire going Red or Arizona or Missouri going Blue?

Here's what I'm looking at. In the West, Nevada & Colorado might be vulnerable, but New Mexico is snugly on our side. Arizona, I just don't think is winnable.

In the Midwest, Ohio and Indiana are at risk, but Iowa's Republicans are gonna go crazy as usual and scare the smart people in the middle over to our side.

In the South, North Carolina is a lost cause and Florida is probably right on the barn top, but Virginia can only be lost if the Republicans can keep the economy down and manage to convince the voters that it's Obama's fault. I assume Obama's still hungry enough to keep that from happening, so count Virginia slightly blue again.

Unless Republicans quit acting like Republicans, I can't imagine any other states flipping one way or another. So, given the worst case scenario... Obama wins by a nosehair next year: 270-268. If he keeps either Ohio or Florida in his column, even losing Virgina doesn't matter, he still wins. He'd have to lose Ohio and Virginia and Florida in order to lose reelection. Even if he lost all three of those, if Obama could somehow pick up Arizona plus just one other wild card Red state like Montana or West Virginia or Nevada, he could scrape out a win.

Someone with some actual wisdom about these places help me. What else do you see as dangers in 2012?