I was checking out the Yahoo Political Dashboard yesterday (it has averages from various political polls), and was surprised to see that while GA and FL are "red states" according to the polls, they are surprisingly close contests... with over 40% of the population ready to cast their vote for Obama in both those conservative states. 
See below for nifty screen shots.

In Florida (where my sister lives) for example, Obama had 43% while McCain only held 46%.  That's only 3% more republican votes than democratic ones... 


And in Georgia (where my parents live) McCain holds exactly 50%, while Obama had almost 44%.  That's only 6% difference.


The states with the biggest difference between the candidates were (according to my clicking) Oklahoma and Rhode Island.  Oklahoma had McCain at 57% and Obama at almost 28% (that's a 29% difference). 



Now, I'm not saying that McCain is going to lose in GA or FL, because that would be a lot to hope for... And neither state is considered a "battleground state" or anything. 
However - it is SO interesting to me to see how closely (almost evenly) divided each of those states are... I guess I had assumed that Georgia and Florida were as one sided as Oklahoma... And thought that my progressive family and friends were like little islands of Hope within a big Red sea...

But, take heart, my family and friends who live there -- You are surrounded by progressives!! (Or at least a refreshingly high number of Obama supporters...)  Yay!