Who'll swing the swing states?

Early into counting, the numbers have been going all over the wall with first Bush, then Kerry, taking leads in the Electoral College votes.

Such swings, in an election being watched around the world, are apt to play havoc with blood pressure levels -- so what follows is an attempt to deconstruct the race, and make it easier to follow.

The simplest way to do this would be to list the states that each candidate is sure to win (with the respective Electoral College votes in parenthesis). Thus:

States predicted to go with George W Bush: Arizona (10), Alabama (9) Alaska (3), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Carolina (15), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), Virginia (13) and Wyoming (3).

States predicted to go with John F Kerry: California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Washington DC (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New Jersy (15), New York (31), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3) and Washington (11).

Total up the respective electoral votes that are considered almost sure, and you have George W Bush 191 and John Kerry 190.

Keep in mind that though these states have been slotted under Bush or Kerry, the game really is for either candidate to be able to poach valuable EC votes from the other – for instance, both North Carolina and South Carolina, with a total of 23

votes between them, and both supposedly sure for Bush, are showing dead even races in this early stage of counting.

That leaves the states that pollsters and pundits have not been able to slot for one candidate or the other: Arkansas (6), Colorado (9), Florida (27), Iowa (7), Missouri (11), Michigan (17), Minnesota (10), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), Ohio (20) Pennsylvania (21), West Virginia (5) and Wisconsin (10).

The real battle is for these 13 states -- the infamous 'swing states' -- and obviously, the winner will quite simply be the one who can hold on to his states, poach if possible from his opponent, and win more of the big ones in the 'swing' list of 13 than the other guy.