1 Boring Old Man

These are various ways of displaying the results of the 2004 Presidential election results from the Physics Department at the University of Michigan [of all places].  Here’s an approximation of how they were generated:

Upper Left: This is the vote by states with the usual Red for Republicans and Blue for Democrats. 

Upper Right: This is the same information, with the States adjusted to reflect the size of the voting population rather than geographic area.

Middle Left: This is the vote displayed by Counties.

Middle Right: This is the same information as the Middle Left, with the Counties adjusted to reflect the size of the voting population rather than geographic area.

Lower Left: This is the vote displayed by Counties, but instead of using Red or Blue, the colors are shaded to reflect the proportion voting Republican and Democrat.

Lower Right: This is the same information as the Lower Left, with the Counties adjusted to reflect the size of the voting population rather than geographic area.

Obviously, the one that most counts is the one on the Upper Right. It most graphically displays who got elected. But the others are also informative. If you look at the image on the Lower Right, there are several things that were instructive to me. Democrats are in the Cities and the minority-dominated areas. Republicans are in the spaces in-between.

When I first saw these graphs, I was intrigued. First, I had no idea how pronounced the Urban/Rural split was. I was equally surprised at how the minority vote was nullified by the electoral system in the areas outside the large cities. But the thing that struck me most was that the distribution of the Republican voters was in marked contrast to what seemed to me to be the Republican values – particularly the values of this particular Administration. While their rhetoric is pitched to these voters, their actions are those of the Party of Big Business. It helped me understand how they brought it off; why they were so solicitous to the Religious Right; why they persist with the disasterous tax cuts that would only matter to people with lower incomes; even the flag-waving Patriotism and liberal bashing.

I reproduce these graphs to review for myself and for your interest, since it appears we’re already in the 2008 Presidential race. It’s clear that Karl Rove built a strategy around [and to create] this voter distribution. The Democrats need to study these pictures carefully so as to avoid another "con job" by the Republicans.