Wow! Look at all of the blue inside of the red on this map:

[patrice]

Read the story here http://www.christianpost.com/news/election-map-shows-mostly-purple-not-red-and-blue-nation-85043/

And then go to the map on the link at the end of the article

and click enlarge to see what I'm talking about here, to see the close-up detail, blues inside of reds.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. I read the story. Where is link to clickable map? Thanks!

[femmocrat]

3. Look way at the end of the column, in blue print.

I tried posting the link, but another copy of the same map came up!

I think it says "Howard's website here." Click on that.

[Indpndnt]

6. At the very end of the article is the link.

Click on where it says, "The map can also be found on Howard's website here."

[ffr]

10. Links

TheFJP.org
Large Map at saltwaterwitch.com URL==> saltwaterwitch.com/img/WhatAmericaLooksLike-2012Election-ChrisHoward.jpg
TRMS (MSNBC) story

[femmocrat]

2. Very cool.

It's like President Obama says, "there is no red America or blue America.....". Maybe he had this map in mind.

[missann]

4. Hmmm....

South Carolina looks nice.

[fujiyama]

5. I noticed that too, since I live in the state

It's a lot less red on the map than one might imagine.

[Liberalynn]

7. I think some more liberals need to move to Western and Upstate NY

so we can turn the whole state all pretty, pretty royal blue my favorite color. The snow isn't all that bad. Plus we your fellow Democrats get so frustrated and lonely being surrounded by so many rednecks.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

16. Working on it!

Turned our county blue for this election! NE NYS

[Liberalynn]

32. Great News

MY county came close but didn't quite make it all the way.

[Barack_America]

8. My county's blue, baby!

And my former county (Philadelphia) is so blue it's nearly black.

[patrice]

11. My county isn't as bad as I thought. In fact we and a few others in Kansas are real blue!

[patrice]

12. Did you notice all of the big fat DEEP blue stuff in Texas?

[Skittles]

17. THANK YOU

there's lots of us here!!!

[underseasurveyor]

19. That took me by surprise too.

Pleasantly surprised

[kentauros]

20. How blue is my valley?

No, I don't live there, but I love seeing the Rio Grande Valley so blue! And every county with a major Texas city (save for Corpus) is deep blue

[Rstrstx]

26. Tragically we lost the critical Kenedy County vote

Romney whipped Obama 83 to 82, with 1 vote for Johnson. Really I had no idea cows could vote.

[Curmudgeoness]

39. When I lived in Houston,

no one would believe me when I said that it was a very progressive city. Texas has a reputation based on the rural rednecks.

[sheshe2]

14. Patrice this is uplifting!

Best news I have seen here all night.
Thank you for posting!
Let's keep moving to purple and blue!

[CoboWowbo]

15. Woo!

My county is the bluest in VT.

[Quantess]

18. I love the west coast!

[ancianita]

21. I've heard it called the urban archipelago.

[bluestate10]

22. This map supports the claims by some southern DUERs, that a lot of the South is

winnable for us if we put in an effort there. I would like to see our next Presidential candidate go to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas and expand the swath of blue in those states. Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Arizona should be part of a western swing that includes California, Oregon and Washington. We should not automatically concede any of the mentioned states, while protecting our core of reliably blue New England, Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. If our side works hard, we can go into every election with a base of at least 300 electoral votes.

[OkieGranny]

23. A fairly significant ribbon of blue

stretching through the southern states, from Mississippi all the way east and up into Virginia. Interesting that it's there. Interesting how contiguous it is.

I wonder what Dean's 50-state strategy + lessons learned from the Obama campaign machine could do to build on that.

[bluestate10]

24. I would love to try to expand on the southern blue regions while keeping Florida and Virginia

in our column. The surprising thing is that it looks like Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana are winnable if we develop strong organizations in them and develop good databases on our voters and those that we can bring over to vote for us. There is a lot more potential in the South than I would have thought based upon just looking at which states went blue and red in the election.

[Jim Lane]

28. Why those counties are contiguous, thus making a ribbon.

It's because they're roughly tracking where the coastline was during the Cretaceous Period, about 100 million years ago. The shallow waters just offshore were hospitable to the growth of plankton. The abundant plankton, after dying, created a rich soil. During the slavery era, cotton plantations along the former coastline could grow more cotton and thus had more slaves to deal with the crop. After emancipation, they and then many of their descendants remained. Today, the population of those counties includes a higher percentage of blacks than are in the state as a whole -- some are majority-black. Thus, those formerly coastal areas, now well inland, are where Democratic presidential candidates do best.

This was pointed out several months ago, by a scientist using the 2008 election data. See "How presidential elections are impacted by a 100 million year old coastline" by Craig McClain, the Assistant Director of Science for the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. Not surprisingly, the 2012 results again reflected the ancient coastline.

[kentauros]

29. Cool!

And yet again, republicans lose to historical fact!

[Jim Lane]

31. It's not a fact if you assume that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Not only would the Republicans be losing because of this fact, but many of them would be in denial about it -- which is also typical.

[marions ghost]

33. And look at where the swath of Eastern Red is...

from western New York state down into upper Mississippi -- what is common to that whole area?

Answer: Appalachia--historically poor, white and undereducated. (Now bonding through Fux/Rush & religion as never before).

By this map Mississippi is trending blue!

----------------

So yes the ribbon of blue counties follow the agricultural areas of the past and have higher black populations. But also in these states you have the blue urban nodes.

Democrats would be crazy to write off these states in any way. To the contrary more effort needs to be poured in. Southern states will be battlegrounds for the foreseeable future.

[emmadoggy]

36. Thank you for this explanation!

I was wondering about that blue strip.

[Up2Late]

25. The South is turning Blue!

Slowly, except where I live.

And look how Blue Santa Barbara Co. is getting!

[ProSense]

27. That's a RW site:

White Evangelical Asks Black Evangelicals Why They Re-Elected Obama

In an open letter to black evangelicals, Michael Brown candidly asks whether they compromised their beliefs by voting for the re-election of President Barack Obama.

"Are you guilty, on any level, of blind allegiance to the Democratic party? And, on Election Day, did any of you compromise your convictions out of racial solidarity?" the radio show host and author of A Queer Thing Happened to America wrote Tuesday on Townhall.com.

<...>

http://www.christianpost.com/news/white-evangelical-asks-black-evangelicals-why-they-re-elected-obama-84897/

[kentauros]

30. This site isn't:

http://tumblr.thefjp.org/post/35708791930/mapping-2012-election-votes

And I would suspect that "Mark Newman (Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems, University of Michigan)" isn't, either

[heaven05]

34. well

most, a lot, a majority are sexist, racist, homophobic and just downright narrow minded. I've been in white evangelical churches and after having to move around in hopes of finding open mindedness, I gave up. Amerikkkan christianity is just not inclusive enough to help people with their faith issues. Clannish to the racial extreme and not very loving.

[mwooldri]

35. Is this a case of civilized = blue, not so much = red?

To me, it eerily looks this way.

[OnionPatch]

40. I grew up in a rural area.

Not in the south, in the Midwest. Still, I've come to the conclusion that they vote the way they do because they aren't exposed to different races and cultures as much as the rest of us. The "other" is scary to them because they're unknown. That and the fact that am radio is filled with radical rightwingers. Rural folks spent a lot of time in their trucks.

[RebelOne]

37. Very little blue in Georgia,

at least not in my county. It is still bright red.

[BlueCollar]

38. Tarrant County and Dallas County in TX

are as blue as you can get...

[toby jo]

41. Great map, thanks.

Red/blue is an information issue. We need to get it out. Teach - papers, events, tech schools (not many universities in red areas),
churches.

Hope when the world doesn't end next month some more may wake up.

[marions ghost]

42. This is the reality

Don't buy the simple red state/blue state dichotomy.

It's just not the truth.

[patrice]

43. blue, red, purple ...whatever - Get out and party for your country, Happy Holidays, all colors of...

the human family!

p~