Thursday, 6 November 2008
“Centre-right country” my ass!
Two images for you, which should sum it up nicely. From the New York Times:
It's hard to look at that map and see the GOP now as anything but a regional party.
4 comments 
Biggs @ 13/11/2008, 2:13 am 
I HAVE heard it said recently from Obama himself on the Daily Show (I just LOOOOVE Jon Stewart) mere days before the election that this country is indeed a conservative one. Given that he won the popular vote only by a slight margin percentage (it was a majority tho, make no mistake), it would seem that there may be some inaccuracies to the map, or at least it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Ian Adams @ 13/11/2008, 9:30 am
I definitely wouldn’t call a 6.5% margin “slight”. That’s much larger than the 2.4% margin that Bush saw as a “mandate” in 2004, and larger even than Bill Clinton’s 5.6% in 1992. While Bill Clinton got an 8.5% margin in 1996, his Democratic predecessor, JImmy Carter, only got 2.1% in 1976, and JFK himself only won by a 0.2% margin. And getting a majority is a big thing for a Democrat; the last Democrat to get more than 51% of the popular vote was Lyndon Johnson 44 years ago. Don’t forget that there are also still votes being counted, which are steadily increasing Obama’s lead. (In fact, while researching to back up my point, it looks like Obama is actually currently at an 8.7% popular vote margin. The 6.5% number was from Nov. 6.) Add to that the electoral landslide, and the increase in Democratic control of the Congress, and I’d say that the map looks very accurate indeed. As to Obama’s quote, I would respond with a quote from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own fact.”
Biggs @ 14/11/2008, 3:33 am
Indeed, the margin is impressive when compared to years past. However, 51% is only barely more than half, which if looked at on a pie chart doesn’t look like much. Furthermore, the fact that the south holds so much of the booger-eatin’ moron demographic is no surprise. However, it fails to address the other half of said demographic that lies in the midwest and mountain states which were solidly to the right. Again, I simply question the accuracy of the map, not the outcome of the recent election.
Ian @ 16/7/2009, 2:37 am
First, it looks like it ended up being 52.92% to 45.66%, not 51%. And when looked at on a pie chart, it does indeed look significant, especially when you realise that said hypothetical pie chart would also include more than the two biggest competitors.
As for the accuracy of the map, your comment did not actually address any of the data on the map, so your grounds for questioning its veracity seem lacking in evidence. I think perhaps there might be a misunderstanding of the data that the map presents. What it shows is, based on the actual election data, a county-by-county breakdown of differences in margins of victory from the 2004 to the 2008 election. Blue indicates the county voted more Democratic than in 2004, while red indicates the county voted more Republican; with the respective colours being darker for higher margins. The map is simply a chart comparing election result data from the 2008 election to the 2004 election, represented geographically as a county map of the United States.