The rural, gun-toting communities of north-eastern New Jersey and the blue-collar, socially-conservative counties in the south were safe Bush territory anyway.

ECONOMIST: Shock-horror in the Soprano state

It has held up well in blue-collar states such as Michigan, Minnesota and New Jersey, where Mr Bush had long enjoyed an edge.

ECONOMIST: Al Gore, the people��s prince

After the late-2001 collapse of Enron punctuated the end of that era, the Bush administration acted swiftly in taking an aggressive stance on white-collar crime.

FORBES: Primary Prosecutors of Mortgage Fraud? Pension Funds And Plaintiffs' Lawyers