Well I woke up way too early so I was curious about that wacky IDB poll and how they weighted their regions. The only way their numbers seemed possible is if the south was weighted well over 40% of the totals. Is that an accurate assessment based on 2004?
I went to wikipedia to get the recent vote totals, split the states up in a way that gave every benefit of the doubt to the south (WV and MO could be Midwest, KS and OK could be west) and came up with this breakdown. There was a rounding error that made the total 121.1 instead of 121.0 million votes, but that's pretty close:
Northeast
CT 1.6
DE .4
DC .2
MA 2.9
ME .7
MD 2.4
NH .7
NJ 3.6
NY 7.3
PA 5.8
RI .4
VT .3
Total 26.3
Percent = 21.7
South
AL 1.9
AR 1.1
FL 7.5
GA 3.3
KS 1.2
KY 1.8
LA 1.9
MO 2.7
MS 1.3
NC 3.5
OK 1.5
SC 1.6
TN 2.4
TX 7.4
VA 3.2
WV .7
Total: 43
Percent - 35.5
Midwest
IA 1.5
IL 5.2
IN 2.3
MI 4.8
MN 2.8
NE .8
OH 5.6
WI 2.9
Total: 25.9
Percent = 21.4
West
AK .3
AZ 2.0
CA 12.2
CO 2.1
HI .4
ID .6
MT .4
ND .3
NM .7
NV .8
OR 1.8
SD .4
UT .9
WA 2.8
WY .2
Total: 25.9
Percent = 21.4
I have to admit that I was surprised at just how big the south really is. They have the advantage of not having any really tiny states or sparsely populated ones. Still though, 44% is way off.
If you reweigh the IDB poll for those percentages: 21.4 west, 21.4 midwest, 35.5 south, 26.3 northeast, you get:
Obama: 47.3
McCain: 43.5
I don't think that gets the big alert on Drudge. This is what happens when I have too much (clap clap) time on my hands.
Note: Just to be fair, I thought I'd also weigh today's Dkos/R2000 poll with those percentages. Actual is 52/40. Reweighed you get 53.4/42.7. Looks like a slight underweighing of the south, but nothing as dramatic of a change.