What Will We Tell The Children?

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As we all know by now, horror and death visited the United States once more today, some hour and 20 minutes from my front door in a small town called Newtown, CT. There was too much blood spilled and for too little reason, as it almost always the case when blood is spilled. The reality of it is overwhelming, stifling, crushing. And in these moments, inevitably, parents turn to one another and ask, “How do explain this to the kids?”

My wife and I’s daughter just turned 1 year and five months old yesterday so there is nothing to be said to her. Her world remains as it was yesterday, untouched by the unspeakable, perplexing nature of tragedy. But it will not always be that way. Someday, I fear sooner than later, we will be faced by another horror and she will want to know why, what it means, are we safe? I have thought a lot about what I will say as I am sure all of you have. This is what I have. Feel free to take what you need when the time comes and leave the rest.

I will not start gracefully, I can tell you that. I love words and I love speaking them—Lord knows that—but there are moments that I feel so small next to that conjuring even simple sentences seems impossible. So I will stammer and stutter, hem and haw like a near-six feet tall, bald, blue eyed WASP-y Woody Allen at first. Until I do not, until, finally, I push back my own private cloud of despair long enough to reach down through my child’s and take her hand.

I will tell her then that is ok to be scared or angry or confused or sad. I will admit I am scared, angry, confused, and sad all at once. These are natural reactions to moments such as these. It is healthy to feel what we feel. And it is equally healthy when we start to feel happy, funny, or excited again.

I will tell her to beware people with pat answers about why people do wrong. It is never as simple as “video games” or “atheism.”

I will tell her that yes, people with mental illnesses can be violent and yes, Daddy does work with people with mental illnesses everyday. But the violent among them, much like the violent among us, are few and far between. People who do violence may be mentally ill, but mental illness and violence are not one in the same.

Most importantly, I will tell her that, yes, we are capable of such terrible things. There is darkness. And there are moments, moments like this where it feels like all we are capable of is devastation, where that inky blackness feels impermeable. But that feeling, the quicksand of despair and cynicism, that is not reality. That is not truth. That’s our minds playing tricks on us because what else can they do when the blood spilled is so much and so unnecessary.

No, we are capable of so much more, so much better than these moments and the tragedies themselves prove that. As surely as there are villains, there are heroes. They may not wear a cape and cowl or swing around in red jumpsuit and carry a billy club any more than the villains smirk a rictus grin or display a crosshair tattoo. They are heroes just the same.

I will not tell her of Dawn Hochsprung, the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary who ran towards, not away, from gunfire and may have activated that PA system allowing so many to survive with her dying act. I will not tell her of the men and women of United Flight 93 who gave their lives preventing terrorists from meeting their goal on September 11th. I will not tell her of the likes of Jon Blunk, Matt McQuinn, and Alex Teves who placed themselves between bullets and the women they loved in a movie theatre in Colorado earlier this year. There will be new heroes in the wake of a new tragedy, people who stood and risked their lives for others because that is what people do. I will tell her to look, look at what we can do even when faced with the worst of ourselves.

And if I know my daughter like I think I do, I know she will hear me and while she might not understand how it could have happened—and really who does understand this—she will find some comfort there. She will close her eyes and go to sleep and the next morning things will be just a bit better.

I will go downstairs and weep, like parents do every night in places the world over, be it Newtown, CT or on the other side of the world in China. I will weep for the victims, for lives ended ugly and far too soon. I will weep for monsters who can’t comprehend their monsters, monsters who can but cannot stop, and even those that can stop and choose not to. I will weep for all the horribleness and wonder, the hatred and love, the hideousness and beauty humanity is capable of all at once. And while I’m not one for intercessory prayer, I’m sure I will pray a bit too, though I know not for what. Then I will dry my eyes, hug my wife, call my friends, put one foot in front of the other. Live my life because, in the wake of tragedy, it is what must be done. Produce light so the dark cannot swallow us.

8th annual LRT Bowl Pick ’em Contest!

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Above: Me at LSU-North Texas with Ross Lancaster, and at Washington-Colorado with David Kreutz.

It’s college football bowl season, and that means it’s time for the 8th annual Living Room Times Bowl Pick ‘em Contest! The contest is now underway.

If you entered my 2010 or 2011 Bowl Pick ’em contest(s), you can log in with the OfficeFootballPool.com username & password that you created previously. (If you forgot your username and password, click here.)

[NOTE: If you tweet, and your Pick ’em contest username is not your Twitter handle, you are encouraged to change your username to your Twitter handle.]

If you didn’t enter my 2010 or 2011 contest(s), then after clicking here, you’ll need to click “NEW USER.” Next, you’ll be prompted to create a “Screen Name” — again, I encourage anyone who tweets to use their Twitter handle — create a Password, and enter your E-mail Address, “First Name,” “Last Name,” and (again) “Twitter Handle.”

You are not required to put your full, real name in the “First Name” and “Last Name” fields (though it’s encouraged), but please give me some way of knowing who you are — what I want to avoid is another situation where I have no idea who the winner is!

As always, the contest is free, and the winner gets acclaim, publicity, and eternal glory here on the blog and on Twitter — but no monetary prize. 🙂 All picks are due by Saturday, December 15 at 11am Mountain Time (10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern), when the New Mexico Bowl kicks off. You can change your picks at any time before the deadline.

You pick the winners of each bowl game “straight up” (NOT against the spread, though the spread is shown for informational purposes only). There are no “confidence points”; instead, each correct pick is worth a predetermined number of points. A grand total of 60 points are possible, broken down as follows:

• 4 points: BCS National Championship Game
• 3 points each: All other BCS games
• 2 points each: All non-BCS bowls from December 29 through January 4
• 1 point each: All other bowls

In the event of a tie in point totals, tiebreakers are as follows:

1. Total # of games picked correctly (regardless of how many points each game is worth)
2. Correct pick of the BCS Championship Game winner
3. Closest to the combined total number of points in BCS Championship Game

So, there you go. Again, sign up here! Have fun! Good luck! Go Irish! 🙂

P.S. You can also enter by clicking here and then manually entering the Pool ID (67297) and the Pool Entry Code (firekiffin). USC fans may want to use that method just for the satisfaction of typing “firekiffin.” 🙂

P.P.S. Speaking of “eternal glory“… here are the past winners:

2005-06: Brian Dupuis
2006-07: Ben Sloniker
2007-08: Seth Carmack
2008-09: Amy Booth
2009-10: Doug Mataconis
2010-11: Randy Styles
2011-12: @Nyghtewynd
2012-13: TBD. It could be you! Enter now!

The Elf on the Shelf

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Our “Elf on the Shelf,” Gatito (name explained here), re-emerged over the weekend after 11 months in a drawer at my office at the North Pole with Santa, and has begun his daily Christmas-season routine of observing the girls, flying to north each night to give a naughty-or-nice report to the Big Guy (little Orwellian surveillance tool that he is), then returning by morning in a new “hiding” spot.

The big girls are thrilled. It’s almost like every morning is Christmas morning, they’re so excited to get up and find their elf. It’s the first thing Loyette says when she pokes me awake: “Daddy, can we go downstairs and look for Gatito?” Thus far, Loyette has been the first to spot him in the morning twice, Loyacita once.

In a new twist this year, Gatito has his very own blog, and is also on Twitter at @ElfOnLoyShelf. So, you can follow his exploits throughout the Christmas season. 🙂

See also: Baby Rabies’ 2nd annual Inappropriate Elf Contest! Lots of LOLs, including:

HoneyBooBooElf1

SpringBreakElf

GangnamElf

Heh. More.

Notre Dame 22, Southern California 13 — Undefeated Irish to Play for Title!

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Notre Dame beat USC, 22-13 Saturday night, in what may prove to have been a best-case scenario for me: the #1-ranked Irish are headed for the BCS championship game in Miami, and USC’s Lane Kiffin might have gotten himself fired — Pat Haden’s previous assurances notwithstanding — thanks to a pair of utterly catastrophic goal-line sequences that cost the Trojans their chance at a fourth-quarter comeback.

More on Kiffin in a moment. But first: WOOOOO!!!! NOTRE DAME!!!!! WOW!!!!!

If you’d told me before the season that Notre Dame would go 12-0 and play for the national title, I would have been utterly flabbergasted. Just like lifelong ND fan and Solid Verbal podcast co-host Ty Hildenbrandt, I thought the very idea of Notre Dame going unbeaten was laughable. I looked at this team’s schedule and figured 9-3 was a stretch, let alone 12-0. So what they’ve done is simply amazing. Unbelievable. What though the odds be great or small…

And for those of you who will now proclaim that the Irish have no chance — zero, zilch, nada — of beating the SEC champion, I suggest you have a chat with 2002-03 Ohio State (given no chance of beating Miami), 2005-06 Texas (an afterthought to questions of whether USC was the best team in history), and 2006-07 Florida (no possible way they could beat those dominant Buckeyes) about predictive overconfidence in a sport where we know far less than we think about the top teams. For that matter, talk to Boise State and Utah and West Virginia and other huge-surprise winners of BCS bowls over the years. Or, hell, talk to Baylor about last week, or Texas A&M about two weeks ago. The point is, upsets can and do happen in college football, all the time, including title games, and including matchups where the very notion of an upset is considered absurd according to the conventional wisdom. Moreover, if you really drill down into their resumes instead of just chanting “S-E-C, S-E-C” over and over, it’s unclear how much Alabama and Georgia have really proven on the field, this year. Notre Dame may very well lose, but you’re a damn fool if you’re talk about that outcome like it’s pre-ordained.

Anyway… I did ultimately decide to root for the Irish tonight, for the reasons I discussed earlier. Once Florida had beaten Florida State — making an all-SEC national title game highly likely in the event of a USC win, and eliminating any possibility of Notre Dame back-dooring into the title game despite a loss — that was the final straw that caused me to stop dancing around the issue and pushed me into the pro-ND camp.

It was very, very weird, though, rooting against the men in cardinal & gold, regardless of the unique circumstances. It felt unnatural. I hope to never do it again.

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But I’m very happy for the Irish. What an awesome accomplishment. GOOOO IRISH, BEEEEAT AN S-E-C TEAM TO BE NAMED LATER!!!

Now, about Kiffykins…

The ending of the game was unbelievably disastrous for him. First, he called a late “ice his own quarterback” timeout that appeared cost his team a touchdown (they got a field goal instead). Then, far more catastrophically, a noxious/glorious combination of horrible clock management, unbelievably bad play-calling, and indefensibly poor awareness of the game situation (and, of course, great defense by the Irish) caused USC to somehow turn a situation where they had the ball at the Irish 2-yard line, down 9, with well over 5 minutes left — which was causing ND fans everywhere to #PANIC — into a situation where, after nine shots at the end zone and zero points, they turned it over on downs with 2:33 left, and a Notre Dame victory was assured.

Kiffin, in other words, did not merely lose a second game to an archrival in a week, capping off a 7-5 season for a team that started off ranked #1 in the country. He managed to do so in a manner that drew all the attention to himself, highlighting his glaring weaknesses in the most humiliating manner possible. The alumni pressure to oust him will be intense and unrelenting. He’ll be gone by Tuesday.

If I’m right, like I said, that’s pretty much the best-case scenario for me:

After the jump, for posterity, the complete Storify history of my USC-ND tweeting today:

Continue reading →

Goooooo Irish, Beeeeeeat Trojans?!?!?

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listen to ‘Go Irish, beat Trojans’ on Audioboo

Back in 2004, when I enrolled at Notre Dame Law School and became an “Irish Trojan,” I wasn’t sure initially whether I would become a fan of Notre Dame’s sports teams. After all, my undergrad alma mater was USC, archrival of the Irish. I figured I’d wait and see how I felt about ND sports once I got there.

One thing I knew for sure, though: at a bare minimum, I would root for USC when they played the Irish.

When I arrived on campus in the land of Domers, I quickly fell in love with the school, its traditions, and yes, its sports teams. My first football game was an upset of a Top 10 Michigan team, which ended with the students — including myself and fellow USC alum Steve Shim — rushing the field. I was instantly hooked on Notre Dame football.

Whatever some Irish die-hards (in particular the reprobates at the ND Nation message board cesspool community) might say in the years to come, I became a genuine fan of the Fighting Irish right then and there. Love thee, Notre Dame. I cheered for the Irish every week, and I cheered hard. Well — every week but one, and there’s the rub. Regarding the rivalry game, I stuck to my guns: when Notre Dame played USC, I would of course root for the Trojans, my first alma mater. Indeed, USC’s epic win at Notre Dame in 2005 became a defining day of my entire decade. I would root for Notre Dame eleven games per season, but in that one game each year, USC-ND, I was a Trojan through and through.

Even way back in 2004, however, I do remember repeatedly articulating one nagging thought, distant and unrealistic though it seemed then, back in the glory years of Pete Carroll and the waning days of Ty Willingham: what the heck would I do if Notre Dame ever played USC in a situation where the Irish were undefeated and in the running for the national title, while USC was out of the BCS hunt, playing a game that’s essentially meaningless to them (outside of the rivalry itself) and simply attempting to play spoiler? Would I still root for USC, even though it meant destroying an Irish dream season for no tangible gain beyond the simple satisfaction of doing so? Or would I, in that unique situation, make an exception and root for the Irish?

My answer then, when I occasionally pondered this issue, was: “I’m just not sure.” That situation, I acknowledged to myself (and I’m pretty sure I said aloud on one or two occasions), would be genuinely difficult, and I really did not know how I’d handle it. And, in the more than eight years since then, I’ve never had to decide.

Well, now I damn well have to decide.

Next Saturday, Notre Dame will play USC at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It will be the marquee game of the post-Thanksgiving weekend, College Gameday will be there, and with good reason: the Irish will come in as the #1-ranked team in the country, thanks to tonight’s losses by Kansas State and Oregon. Win, and Notre Dame is going to the national championship game, probably to play Alabama or Georgia. Lose, and they’re almost certainly out of the title hunt (and we get into a situation of total #CHAOS that could result in the nightmare of an Alabama-Florida BCS title matchup).

USC, meanwhile, is 7-4, and bound for some crappy third-tier bowl regardless of Saturday’s outcome. The preseason #1 Trojans will be playing for pride, and to be a spoiler — nothing more. Arguably, a loss to Notre Dame could even be beneficial to USC’s longer-term prospects, as such a disastrous end to the Trojans’ season against their two hated rivals might force Pat Haden to fire Lane Kiffin, whatever he says now. Regardless, the Trojans have essentially nothing to gain in the big picture by beating the Irish, whereas Notre Dame has everything to gain, and an enormous amount to lose.

So, what the Hell do I do?

I discussed this in a Facebook post last week, back when it was still a hypothetical possibility. I wrote, in part:

All these years, since I became an “Irish Trojan” in 2004, I’ve faithfully rooted for USC over Notre Dame every time they’ve played, indeed I’ve rooted EXTRA HARD for USC when the Trojans were playing the Irish, really living up the whole dual loyalties thing. I’ve said “I root for Notre Dame in every game but one” more times than I can count. Over and over, I’ve proclaimed that I always root for my first, original alma mater, my undergrad over my law school. Always.

But… but… in this unique situation… where Notre Dame is playing for a shot at the national title… and USC is playing for nothing (except for the mere fact of beating Notre Dame, which is, of course, never literally “nothing”)… is it justifiable to make an exception? …

I know that, if root for ND, I’ll be tarred and feathered by a “bandwagon” fan, probably by both USC fans and to some extent ND fans as well. But let me just say, the issue is NOT which team is “better.” If USC were 2-9 and Notre Dame were 9-2, there’s no question I’d root for the Trojans. Likewise, if Notre Dame were 11-0 … and USC were 10-1 and ranked #5, but still had a shot at the title if they beat ND and other dominoes fell, I’d definitely root for the Trojans. The only reason this is an issue is because ND has a shot at the national title while the game is effectively meaningless for USC.

Right now, I sort of feel like, when they kick off, my heart is going to be with Notre Dame. But I’m not sure. And I feel like I should feel guilty about that. Maybe.

I asked for people’s comments on my dilemma, and the reactions were fascinating.

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Jonathan Sickinger is apparent winner of Electoral Contest; 6 perfect maps

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Jonathan Sickinger of South Hadley, MA, a Democrat and Obama supporter who started following me due to my Pajamas Media Weather Nerd blog coverage of Hurricanes Isaac and Sandy, appears to have won the 3rd quadrennial Living Room Times Electoral College Contest with 538 points and a perfect prediction map.

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This “call” of the contest winner — “RIGHT NOW!” as Wolf Blitzer would say — assumes that Barack Obama wins Florida, which has not officially been announced yet, but appears inevitable. Continue reading →

Best. Election. Ever.

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Barack Obama re-elected, and by a comfortable margin both electorally and popularly. Nate Silver, and the concept of objective facts, vindicated against the Right’s ritual denialists. The Democratic Senate majority, which seemed doomed a year ago, expanded. Marijuana legalized in Colorado. Gay marriage legalized at the ballot box in Maine, Maryland and Washington (and an anti-gay marriage amendment defeated in Minnesota). The GOP caucus in the Colorado State Assembly, which egregiously contorted legislative procedures — completely shutting down the people’s business at the eleventh hour — to prevent passage of a civil unions bill that had the votes to pass, kicked out of the majority. A local school bond issue, which will fund the construction of our girls’ eventual high school in our rapidly growing neighborhood, passed. Wingnut senatorial candidates defeated in Missouri and Indiana (the latter by a Notre Dame Law School alum, no less). Crackpot Congressman Allen West ousted. Really, last night couldn’t have gone any better from my perspective.

Well, okay, Michele Bachmann could have lost, too, as she almost did. But that would’ve been just an embarrassment of riches.

The best part of the night, though, was watching it all unfold with Loyette and Loyacita, and engaging them in the process. They were very much into updating their puzzle (above) and their Giant Electoral College Thermometers (below), among other things. Even Loyabelle got into the action at one point, practically chasing me around the living room with a marker she found on the floor, wanting to draw on an electoral map. Heh.

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Loyette, who became a huge Mitt Romney fan (“because he’s handsome”) during the GOP primaries when we would watch parts of the debates, and maintained that fandom into the general election — even getting to shake his hand at a rally that I took her to just before the Denver debate — would ultimately be disappointed by the result, of course. But she didn’t know about it until this morning, and in fact, she was pretty excited last night, as Romney led in the electoral count for most of the evening.

Because it was Election Night, we kept the older girls up past their usual ~7:00-7:30 PM bedtime, but finally put them to bed around 8:30 PM — about 45 minutes before this happened:

Romney, in fact, was still leading — just barely — on the thermometers when the girls last updated them before bedtime, as you can see in the earlier photo. But I pretty much knew he was going to lose, based on the way things were going in Florida and elsewhere, so I tried to prepare Loyette for that eventuality. (Loyacita preferred Obama, though she wasn’t nearly as invested either way in the outcome as her big sister.) Just before our goodnight hugs and kisses, I explained to Loyette that, even though Mitt Romney was winning, “I think he might lose,” and she shouldn’t be “shocked” if she finds out in the morning that he did. She announced that she would be very sad and would cry if that happened, but she also asked me to leave her a “note” outside her door telling her the result, so she could find out immediately upon waking up, and not be “shocked.” I did that, and as expected, there were some tears this morning — “Daddy, I’m really sad Mitt Romney lost. I really wanted him to win.” — but she avoided a total meltdown, at least thus far. (As Jim Kelly quipped on Facebook: “Sounds like she handled it better than Dick Morris or Karl Rove then.” Heh.) We’ll see how it goes this evening, when I’ve promised the girls they can finish their thermometers and their puzzle…

Anyway, my election liveblog is technically still active; I’ll probably shut it down later tonight, but I wanted to wait until a few final races are “called” and I can come as close as possible to finality on the Electoral College Contest. Speaking of which, I’ll post an update here about that later, again probably tonight. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, I’m already thinking about how to make the midterm elections engaging for the girls, who will be almost 3 1/2, almost 5 1/2, and almost 7 by the time November 2014 rolls around…

Election Night Liveblog & Livechat!

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My Election Day live-blog, live-chat & live results page is online and underway!

Alternatively, you can view a less “conversational” version of the page — not “chat,” no @mentions, just Becky’s and my tweets & RTs. That’s the “live-tweeting only” page.

Both pages will have live Electoral College Contest results alongside the live blog/chat window, like 4 years ago, assuming I can keep the spreadsheet going throughout the night.

After the jump, for posterity, the “live-tweeting only” window, then the “live blog/chat” window:

Continue reading →

Hurricane Sandy: The ultimate October surprise?

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It’s too early to be remotely certain, but Hurricane Sandy has the potential to become a big f***in’ deal for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, transitioning into an epic storm of historic proportions — not a major hurricane per se, but a monster warm-core/cold-core hybrid, possibly a “subtropical hurricane” (a category which isn’t even supposed to exist) — and slamming the region early next week with lots of rain and wind, huge storm surge and severe coastal flooding (at astronomical high tide, no less), and, on the western edge of the storm, crippling snowfall (!). It could be like a Nor’easter on steroids, a rerun of the “Perfect Storm” of 1991, or conceivably something even worse. And all of this a week before the election, with potential aftermath effects lasting well past November 6.

Here’s what the Euro model predicts for late Monday night, per WeatherBell:

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Over on my Weather Nerd blog for Pajamas Media, I write:

[I]t’s worth noting that two major swing states — Virginia and New Hampshire — plus North Carolina and Pennsylvania, if you consider those genuine swing states…, and to a lesser extent Florida, could be impacted by this storm in the week before the election. Heck, the eastern part of Ohio, the swing state to end all swing states, may get some snow from it. …

[Moreover], if Sandy does strike the northeast a week before the election, and does cause massive, widespread and long-lasting power outages, as well as enormous damage to trees and such — not to mention crippling snow over the Appalachians (and maybe parts of Ohio???) — … [w]e could well see depressed voter turnout throughout the affected region, if the infrastructural damage is still being significantly felt a week later, which seems possible. That might not affect the outcome of the presidential race (unless Ohio really is hard-hit), but, as my father points out via e-mail, it could harm President Obama’s popular vote totals, if folks in Democratic strongholds — particularly New York — don’t vote because the storm’s aftermath makes it too inconvenient (and besides, they know they aren’t in a swing state, so why go to all the extra trouble?). There’s been a lot of talk about Obama winning the electoral vote but losing the popular vote, like Bush in 2000; in a worst-case scenario, Sandy’s effects could made that more likely. Sandy could also impact some key congressional races, notably the U.S. Senate battles in Connecticut and Massachusetts. …

Harold Ambler, a fellow weatherblogger…sums things up nicely. … On Twitter, Ambler adds:

Hurricane Sandy has the potential to make people forget Irene and Halloween snow from 2011. May it instead turn out to sea…

Possible effects of Hurricane Sandy:
1. SEVERE coastal erosion
2. damaging storm surge
3. flooding rains
4. crippling snows on western edge
5. people without electricity for a long time
6. voting turnout affected the next week
7. President Obama having to tend to a national emergency in the run-up to the election

I might add, “8. Mitt Romney needing to blunt harsh criticisms of President Obama in the final days of the campaign because of the perception that it’s unseemly to attack the president when he’s tending to a national emergency.” Unless of course the Obama Administration’s response is perceived as inadequate or incompetent, in which case all bets are off. Likewise, in this scenario, Obama would need to cool it with the attacks on Romney during the final week of the campaign, and with campaigning generally, in order to appear focused on addressing the national emergency. Joe Biden and perhaps Bill Clinton would probably become Obama’s major campaign-trail surrogates in such a scenario, and their message would need to be less hard-edged because of the sensitivities of the moment.

I suspect, if Sandy continues to look like a big potential problem — a “big f***ing deal,” as someone once said — we’ll soon start to see conspiracy theories suggesting that Obama will try to delay the election because of the storm. That won’t happen. But, in a worst-case scenario, Sandy and its aftermath could definitely become a big part of the story of the election.

For the latest on Sandy, stay tuned to my Twitter feed and my PJM Weather Nerd blog.

Summing up the debates

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P.S. On another note, Nate Silver says Ohio now has a 50-50 chance of deciding the election. Compare that to the #2 through #9 ranked “tipping point” states: Wisconsin 10%, Virginia 10%, Nevada 9%, Iowa 7%, Colorado 5%, Pennsylvania 3%, New Hampshire 3%, Florida 2%. Put another way:

We are now running about 40,000 Electoral College simulations each day. In the simulations that we ran on Monday, the candidate who won Ohio won the election roughly 38,000 times, or in about 95 percent of the cases. (Mr. Romney won in about 1,400 simulations despite losing Ohio, while Mr. Obama did so roughly 550 times.)

To which I say:

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(That’s a photo of our new red state/blue state puzzle, which is awesome. And no, this is not my official prediction for the Electoral College Contest. I’m waiting for more data to make my picks at the last minute, but if I were predicting today, I would probably flip Colorado and New Hampshire from what this map shows. That said, it doesn’t matter — either candidate could win both CO and NH, or they could split the states in either direction, and Ohio would still be decisive on this map.)