Great Lakes Liberal 5 Nov 2004
6:24 pm

Thank you!  This is exactly how we need to be looking at things. To see everything in “red” and “blue” is as bad as the “you’re either for or against us” mindset. We are definitely NOT a country that must be polarized nor are we. We may have different shades of grey and differing degrees of valuing things but it’s a complex nation. Maybe for someone who “doesn’t do nuance” the solid red or blue is helpful. For a thinking, intellectually curious person, the purple is much moreso.  It’s also positive proof that we are much more united than we thought we were.  We do have commonalities as states and counties. Even on issues.
Thanks for painting a more realistic and thoughtful picture of our electorate.
Magenta and much less marginalized in Ohio

DM 5 Nov 2004
11:14 pm

It’s red and blue because the electoral college system makes it that way. The minority people in each state suffer from tyranny of the majority (and now the whole country is suffering from tyranny of the minority). This is why the antiquited electoral college has got to go but the Repubs will never go for it because then they won’t have a chance in hell of winning ever. Bush won the popular vote but if people’s votes weren’t made irrelevant by being in a heavily red or blue state, more people would vote. Most studies show that the majority of Americans believe in progressive ideas to varying degrees.

Milo Minderbender 6 Nov 2004
6:16 pm

The red and the blue labels, like the grey and blue labels of the mid-nineteenth century, describe the cultural differences between an urban, educated, post-industrial population and its rural, agricultural and increasingly industrial counter-part.  The migration of industry from the northeastern, midwestern and coastal western states to the “heartland”, where the costs of production, including the costs of nonunion labor, are lower, are motivating a corresponding migration of population to the rural regions of the country, the red states, from the urban regions of the country where the costs of living are rapidly outstripping the per capita income of blue collar workers.  So the northeastern, midwestern and coastal western migrants are exchanging their blue collars for red necks, an ideological transformation made all the more palatable by conservative Republican demogogues who can plausibly claim that their problems were constantly aggravated by liberal Democratic social engineers who for decades promoted the civil and women’s rights which forced white males to compete with women and minorities in a constantly shrinking job market, the gay and women’s rights which directly diminished their collective compensatory cultural identity of white male sexual supremacy, and educational opportunity which fueled already aggravated resentments and alienated them from their spouses and their children.  The progressively limited supply of petroleum can only further accelerate the severity of the cultural backlash.  Welcome to the New World Order.

heatwave 8 Nov 2004
6:37 pm

notice that the blue states are on the coastal and great lakes region?? I am glad there is nothing being done about global warming! When the oceans rise maybe it will drown all you liberal sodomite weirdo twits and turn you all into what you were meant to be—fish food…

JCM 8 Nov 2004
8:46 pm

Heatwave
Nice try, but the heat has obviously warped your thinking.  Let me help you with the geography you obviously slept through.  The “Red” coastal states of VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, TX, and mostly ALASKA make the Red States more vulneable to globally warming.  The Great Lakes region, with ample fresh water, will not be as impacted by the rise in oceans, since they ARE LAKES! 
Go back to sleep, and when Cheney tells you and the rest of the right-wing to drink the Kool Aid, I hope you do.

heatwave 9 Nov 2004
5:35 am

oh thank you jcm for your benevolence. I is just a poor dumb hick from the red state region and instaed of geography they taught us that all you homosexuals are bad people. I have to go find a book to look up if what you say is true.

hey- dirtbag- get your head outta Michael Moore’s pants for a while and then pull Al Gore outta yer ass and listen up! Global warming is OK!!! At least it takes your mind off what to wear to the next meeting of gay abortionists for gun control…

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