WOW the GOP is great at winning counties where nobody lives.

[slampoet]

Each and every county won by the GOP is among the least populated in its state.


Well.........almost.

[loyalkydem]

1. You know

I never noticed that before, great find. Even my home county, Bertie County in North Carolina turned Blue. Very good read there.

[eshfemme]

2. It's almost akin to the "rotten boroughs" in Britain, isn't it?

[rasputin1952]

3. I'm out here in Nebraska...there are a LOT of counties w/a small

population...add them up though, and there are quite a few eople out there.

There are some places out West where you can drive for an hour or so befoere you see another human being.

[slampoet]

8. Yeah like eastern Oregon.....just miles w/o people.

PS - i didn't mean to be mean to NE or any small towns I just hate the "McCain won Most of America" thread.

[rasputin1952]

19. No problem at all...I know that a lot of locals sit in combines

listening to Limbaugh and his pals bashing the crud out of the Constitution...they've been rainwashed for many a year.

Oddly, when I talk to a lot of these people, they know nothing other than what they hear on the radio or in churchp; newspapers and news mags aren't even in the equation...and the internet...:eyes:

[RoccoR5955]

4. Look at New England!

New England is so blue, it spills into NY!

[Nite Owl]

5. Tom Brokaw held up that map

or one like it, and exclaimed that the country was indeed still center right, idiot that he is.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

42. Yeah, dirt isn't very progressive.

[BlueManDude]

6. more livestock than people.

[Ian David]

7. Unfortunately, if you overlay that map...

... with a map of projected changes due to sea levels rising from Global Warming...

Well, you're looking at a Republican landslide around 2060.

[Diane R]

9. That's not accurate. Spokane County (WA. St.,) is shown as red, and we voted for Obama.

Spokane county is right above the only blue county on the state's eastern border. We should be dark blue. We are the largest city between Seattle and Minneapolis.

[slampoet]

12. Nice Catch.

For those who see the blue county in eastern Washington.....that Isn't Spokane.

I think that is the county where Eastern Washington U is located am i correct?

[Diane R]

43. EWU is in Spokane County. The county right below, Whitman County, went blue because of WA. St. Univ

[Chulanowa]

48. I was under the impression that Mobile county, AL went blue, too?

Huh. Must have been an early results map or something

[NHDEMFORLIFE]

10. Proud New Englander

Out of the six states, it looks like only one county in Maine failed to endorse the President-elect. And every county in my native NH is blue.

[dbackjon]

11. McCain won ONE county in New England, Zero in HI

And Obama didn't win a county in AK or OK

[Kalyke]

13. Sad to say that's not true in Tennessee

McFailin' won Knox and Hamilton counties, homes of Knoxville and Chattanooga, the third and fourth largest cities in the state, respectively.

I'm sorry.

I live in Knoxville, which did vote Obama, but was handily trounced by the numbskulls in Knox County.

[baldguy]

14. Tumbleweeds & prairie dogs.

[PBS Poll-435]

15. Wow...We won every county in

Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and most in Maine and Wisconsin!

[Arugula Latte]

39. That's proof that rural doesn't necessarily equal Republican.

Years ago, New England was the rock-ribbed Republican Northeast.

Things change...

[truthisfreedom]

16. Think about it... what motivates people to live far away from other people?

Anti-social much?

[slampoet]

20. People make people live far away from others. Also it can be your job or life's calling.

I can tell you that even thought i live in a populous place every once in a while I want to get a cabin in the woods.



I like what George Carlin said about why it is great to live on the Water.

He said that the great thing is that you are only surrounded by assholes on three sides, and if they come from the fourth direction you can hear them splashing.

[codjh9]

21. Not necessarily! I love mountains, hiking, wildlife, natural beauty (and making art from it) - that

doesn't make me 'anti-social'.

[pipi_k]

23. Out here in the Hilltowns of Western Mass

we have a lot of space between us and other people. I guess it's the feeling of having breathing room...not having to deal with other people and their bullshit that makes it so much better living here than in the city.

Plus people themselves are much more likely to care about individuals when there aren't so many of them concentrated in a little area. Because we have to, you know. We don't live close to each other, but we do know that we can depend on any of our neighbors in an emergency...

Not to mention the water tastes better, the air smells better, and the scenery is beautiful no matter what season it is... :)


anyway, that having been said, out of all the little Hilltowns out here, only one actually voted for McCain. All the rest of us voted Democrat. Which makes me feel pretty good since we're generally seen as being sort of backward out here...uncivilized, you know?


We're not the savages some people (in the eastern part of the state) would like to believe we are

:7

[a la izquierda]

33. Oh gimme a break

I go to school in Oklahoma...I like it because it's cheap too and there's kick ass cycling, hiking, rafting and camping. No traffic, gas is about 1.80 at the moment and my husband and I are not getting rocked by the economy. I grew up in the NYC metro and lived in L.A., so spare me your sanctimonious "anti-social" b.s.
Oh and thanks for slamming the efforts of your Dem brethren who live out in those parts. You probably weren't aware that you had.
Ugh, I swear not even three days after the election...

[Milspec]

38. I live in Tulsa

Obama signs out numbered McCain signs 2 to 1. I moved here from 30 years of living (mostly) in SoCA. Requires adjustments, but as M77 said its very affordable, has tremendous natural beauty. True very red, but to only way to change that is to change the demographics. Come here, you will finds friend here that you would have never thought were on the ground in OK.

[a la izquierda]

40. Right on, my I35 neighbor!

I'll be back in Oklahoma in a few months, and honestly, despite growing up in cities, I can't wait to be back. Living in a place as crowded as Guadalajara, MX is a bit overwhelming!

[slampoet]

34. YO! truthfree-guy. Can you name your neighbors and what they do for a living?

People in small towns and rural areas can.

[LiberalFighter]

37. Like Ted Kaczynski

[TransitJohn]

17. Here's a cartogram weighted by county

This page is worth the read:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

[codjh9]

18. As someone who'd rather live in a smaller town or in the country rather than a big city, I resent

the 'where nobody lives' remark! Don't worry, I've lived in several cities, big or moderate-sized, and have come to like cities for several reasons, but still, given the choice, I'd rather not be in one, except perhaps a liberal commie place like Austin, Portland, etc.

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. I'd prefer the country, but I remember doubling up with laughter when

a character played by Dyanne Cannon quipped that she'd been to Nebraska (or some State with wide, open spaces), and said there was nothing there. Or words to that effect, though sounded much funnier the way she said it. There seems to be some truth in that "rotten boroughs" comment, too, doesn't there? Nothing like proportional representation!

[PlanetBev]

22. My sympathies to Bartcop

Got to be tough to live in Tulsa.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

24. Damn, Oklahoma is solid Red. Even Utah has some blue spots. nt

[Drunken Irishman]

25. And Salt Lake County (the largest in the state) went to McCain by only 2,000 votes.

[BrklynLiberal]

26. I really prefer this version of the US map...

The states are colored red or blue to indicate whether a majority of their voters voted for the Republican candidate, John McCain, or the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, respectively. Looking at this map it gives the impression that the Republicans won the election handily, since there is rather more red on the map than there is blue. In fact, however, the reverse is true – the Democrats won by a substantial margin. The explanation for this apparent paradox, as pointed out by many people, is that the map fails to take account of the population distribution. It fails to allow for the fact that the population of the red states is on average significantly lower than that of the blue ones. The blue may be small in area, but they represent a large number of voters, which is what matters in an election.

We can correct for this by making use of a cartogram, a map in which the sizes of states are rescaled according to their population. That is, states are drawn with size proportional not to their acreage but to the number of their inhabitants, states with more people appearing larger than states with fewer, regardless of their actual area on the ground. On such a map, for example, the state of Rhode Island, with its 1.1 million inhabitants, would appear about twice the size of Wyoming, which has half a million, even though Wyoming has 60 times the acreage of Rhode Island.

Here are the 2008 presidential election results on a population cartogram of this type:




Here is what the cartogram looks like for the county-level election returns:




One way to improve the map and reveal more nuance in the vote is to use not just two colors, red and blue, but to use red, blue, and shades of purple in between to indicate percentages of votes.
And here's what the cartogram looks like:



All this and more can be found at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

[Papagoose]

27. Trust me, people live in those red counties

I live in Polk County in NW Gerorgia - redder than red - and would cut off my fingers before voting republican, but I do know what you mean. New England and Chicagoland sure look appealing to me.

[Patsy Stone]

29. Or as Wanda Sykes said:

"Don't pay any attention to all that red... don't nobody live there."

[slampoet]

32. Actually that was a Chris Rock line back in 2000.

If it was said by Wanda she is stealing material.....(again)

[Patsy Stone]

35. She was talking to Chris Rock

IIRC, and she was standing at the big map. Whether he wrote the line for her or not, I could not say. And yes, it was from 2000.

[JaneQPublic]

46. Actually, Wanda used to be a writer for Chris

On "The Chris Rock Show."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Sykes

[slampoet]

50. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. i didn't know that.

[PM7nj]

30. Except in Wisconsin and New England, it seems.

[JJ]

31. Like this

Saw a comparison like this in 2000.
The US at night was captioned "people with electricity"
and the county one was captioned "people in the dark."

[rainbow4321]

36. Eh..don't go by the map to determine population

Cuz my repuke red county north of Dallas has a population of 698,851 (as of 2006). Going by my county's election page stats for Nov 4th there were only 295,818 votes cast. Kind of depressing to think of how MANY people in this county didn't think going to VOTE was that important.

See that blue county in North Texas..that is Dallas County. MY solid red county is right above it. Looks like no one would live there but like I said, almost 700,000 of us do.

[anonymous171]

41. lol Texas. Gerrymandering is sometimes very very obvious.

[MNReformer]

49. The gerrymandering was written up in the New Yorker

In an article by Jeff Toobin. I guess redistricting occurs again in 2010. While a few states now use non-partisan commissions to draw Congressional districts, the great majority of Congressional districts will still be drawn by state legislatures following the 2010 census. In most states, the governor still has a veto over Congressional redistricting plans.

If one party controls both houses of a state’s legislature and the governor’s office, it can pretty well have its way in drawing Congressional lines that will be in place for the next decade. This is where gerrymandering often comes into play…stacking districts to favor one party over the other

I guess Michelle Bachmann's sixth district can just be gerrymandered so we can get rid of her next time. Minnesota controls both houses of our state legislature.

[ananda]

44. Ermm.. except in Texas.

Travis County has about a million.
Harris County has about six million.
Dallas County has about five million.

Texas will be blue next time around.
The trend is hopeful.

[TK421]

45. They did really well in Bumblefuck, Oklahoma...and I hear that they came out

in droves around Hells Creation South Dakota ( the more conservative areas, of course )

Other than that....they just-plain-sucked-my-balls

[Quantess]

47. And, they are the most scared of terrorism.

The people who live in places where terrorists are least likely to strike.