Pen-Elayne on the Web

Color Coding

Lots of blogosphere comments lately about "red states" versus "blue states." For instance, I've just read this interesting bit by Kevin Drum (link at sidebar) conveniently reproducing a version of the "red versus blue" map made famous during Selection 2000 to illustrate how taxes paid by the blue states (i.e., states whose electoral votes went to Al Gore) are largely subsidizing services provided to citizens of the red states (i.e., states "won" by Bush). Not true across the board, but the map similarities are interesting. Now if I were prone to smear campaigns I'd begin asking why Republicans are red, as so many people still associate that color with Communism and therefore evil, but as a rule the province of the left is generally uncomfortable truths meant to counter smears (the province of the right, which seems to have an aversion to truth), so that wouldn't work. The thing I don't get is, people are talking about "red versus blue" like these states' voting records in 2000 are somehow immutable. Remember, Bush didn't win these states, Gore lost them due to a lackluster campaign and a muddled message that veered so far to the right as to be virtually indistinguishable from the Bush campaign's message (which is not the same thing as the Bush administration's actions; the campaign was certainly conservative but the messages were far more moderate than the radical policies that have actually been enacted). So I can't count these "red" states as automatically Republican.

Nor was there any sort of Republican mandate in effect. In fact, a comment to Kevin's post pointed towards Brad DeLong's map of how citizens actually voted (as opposed to how the Electoral College and Supreme Court went). As Brad notes, "No islands. No sharp divisions. No yawning cultural and sociological gap--just slightly varying shades of purple, mixed blue and red. Only seven states in 2000 had a Republican presidential vote share more than sixty percent. Only five states in 2000 had a Republican presidential vote share less than forty percent. The first map is false advertising--the combination of our quirky system of electing a president with the tendentious arguments political commentators interested in maximizing perceived differences. The second map is reality." As we head into the 2004 campaigns we might do well to remember that.