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Voters and Elastic States  North Carolina is a swing state that
has relatively few swing voters. Rhode Island is not a swing
state, but it has quite a lot of swing voters.  Are you confused
yet?  The concept I’m getting at here is a pretty basic one,
although it is sometimes hard to explain because the term
“swing” is applied in such a wide variety of different ways to
describe voter behavior. So it may be time to introduce a new
term into the political lexicon, which I’ll call an elastic
state in reference to a similar concept in economics.  Let’s
define an elastic state as one that is relatively sensitive or
responsive to changes in political conditions, such as a change
in the national economic mood. (This is in the same way that, in
economics, an elastic good is one for which demand is highly
sensitive to changes in prices.)  For instance, if there are a
series of strong jobs reports this summer, and President Obama’s
standing improves by five