November 04, 2004

Purple Mountains' Majesty

filed under: Hey, What's The Big Idea

Brad DeLong and pretty much every else have posted this, so what the heck. It's nice to look at.

Here is the binary red/blue breakdown county by county:

election-counties-2.png

Depressing, right?

Well here is each country colored on a purple spectrum between red and blue based on the porporionate vote share (black counties had missing or contradictory info, the ironic symbolism of which I will leave alone) - click for full size:

purple_america_2004_small.gif

This is from the website of one Robert Vanderbei, apparently. Well a tip of the hat to Robert for making me feel slightly less alone.

Posted by rjt at November 4, 2004 04:40 PM
Comments

Of course, correlation doesn't mean causation, but it's interesting that those two bands of blue across the south coincide with the paths of the first major railroads through the region, and of course, the stripe down the middle coincides with the Mississipi trade corridor.

Interesting that the trade routes seem to spur "blueness"....

Posted by: frydry at November 5, 2004 02:22 PM

Fascinating point. I had noticed the Mississippi, but not the railroad connection.

And I assume the mottled blue starting in northern New Mexico and stretching upwards is what, the rocky mountains? Democratic Colorado?

Posted by: rjt at November 5, 2004 03:04 PM