Another e-mail:

For the life of me I can’t understand why states like California and New York are still given any weight in the GOP primary process. It is an absolute certainty that both states will vote Democrat in the Fall as they have in every post-1984 Presidential election. Shouldn’t the Republican nominee be chosen based principally on the preferences of GOP voters in states that the Republicans have a realistic chance of winning in 2008? We should care far more about picking a nominee who can rally the GOP base in states like Ohio and New Mexico, rather than one who is popular in true Blue States like California, New York and Massachussetts.

UPDATE: A response:

I’d like to answer the e-mailers question as to why the GOP should care or try all that hard in California, Mass, so forth where they are doomed in the general election. First, I’d like to think that the right candidate could change that. Second, no Republican can win nationally without being competitive in most large states. To ignore California and concentrate on the “red” states invites an unnecessary skewing of the rhetoric to the right, which might please us but would be the GOP’s downfall.
No, we all have to care about all states.