SANTA FE, New Mexico -- The ballot counting goes on in New Mexico, the battleground state closest to Northeast Asia and U.S. Democrats' last stand, but to what avail? With the presidential election already decided, only the political arithmetic remains.

Amazingly, only two states changed hands in four years, New Hampshire, with its four electoral votes going from President George W. Bush to Sen. John Kerry and Iowa with its seven electoral votes going to Bush for a net gain of three for the president. (The rest of his Electoral College majority came from population shifts to the red states.)

Only New Mexico stands in the way of a virtual "red" (conservative) state sweep -- between the East and West coasts with the results due at the end of the week. Symbolically that's important since the election outcome was decided largely on the basis of the domestic agenda in which cultural values trumped foreign policy.