Implications of Specter's Party Switch

kos has an interesting take on the implications of Senator Arlen Specter's earth-shattering news hat he will defect to the Democrats, probably giving them the 60 votes they need to a filibuster-prrof majority in the United States Senate:

Check it -- Republicans are now down to 40 senators, distributed in these
states: AK: 1, AL: 2, AZ: 2, FL: 1, GA: 2, ID: 2, IN: 1, IA: 1, KS: 2, KY: 2,
LA: 1, ME: 2, MS: 2, MO: 1, NE: 1, NH: 1, NV: 1, NC: 1, OH: 1, OK: 2, TN: 2, SC: 2, SD: 1, TX: 2, UT: 2, and WY: 2.

* Republicans are present in 26 states, which doesn't sound so bad. But it means that almost half the country doesn't have any Republican Senators. Only 14 states lack a Democratic Senator.

* Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, and North Carolina (and maybe even
Florida if Crist doesn't jump in for the GOP), are all top candidates for
sending two Democrats to the Senate after the 2010 elections. That would further
shrink the GOP into its deep South and Mormon Corridor strongholds.

* Of the GOP's remaining 40 senators, 17 of 24 come from the South (FL, NC, SC, AL, MS, GA, VA, TN, KY, LA, AR, TX). That's up from 15 after the 1998 election.

* Of those remaining 40 senators, only 3 of 24 come from the Northeast
(ME, VT, NY, MD, PA, CT, DE, MA, NH, RI, WV, NJ). That's down significantly from
9 after the 1998 election.

* Of those remaining 40 senators, only 10 of 26 come from the West (NM, CA, OR, WA, AK, HI, MT, ID, UT, NV, AZ, WY, CO). That's down from 16 after the 1998 election.

* Of those remaining 40 senators, only 10 of 26 come from the Midwest (IL, MN, MI, OH, WI, IA, MO, KS, IN, ND, SD, OK, NE). That's down from 14 after the 1998 election.

So check it -- there is only one region the GOP dominates, and it does so with a
solid majority. That's the South, and there's a reason it remains the only
region in the country to have a problem with our president and the Democratic majority:

Gee, and what would that reason be? *cough* race *cough*