The map on the left above depicts the 2008 electoral vote distribution by state. The cartogram on the right resizes areas to correspond to population and depicts the county-by-county results of the 2008 election. Different, aren’t they? I think they form a nice illustration of the point that I was making in my “There Are No Red States. There Are No Blue States” post of last week. The image is sampled from a very interesting post at Reason.com.
The sharp edges of the map on the left are artifacts accompanied by a loss of precision. The cartogram is a more precise reflection of the reality of American politics but it isn’t precise, either. Real opinion is much more diverse and much more broadly distributed across the country than even the swirls of the cartogram reflect.
Did history begin in 2008? Why not take 2004 or 2000 as our benchmark? Here’s Robert Vanderbei’s animated graphic of presidential election results by county from 1960 to 2004:
You can click on the image for a larger version.
If there is an inexorable flow in human affairs, it is not discernable in the short term.
I agree that there ultimately are no red or blue states, but what I regard as a pernicious winner-take-all system presents the illusion of such. The way our system is currently structured actually contributes to the sense of polarization. If we had a direct vote for the presidency I think the notion of strict regional divisions would quickly evaporate.
A direct popular vote for president would still be a winner-take-all system.
As I see it the problem is too much centralization not that the candidate for whom one half+1 of the people vote does not necessarily become president.
I’m not saying it would cease being a winner-take-all system, just that one is more pernicious because it presents political divisions that in my opinion don’t exist. I think you made this point yourself:
“Real opinion is much more diverse and much more broadly distributed across the country than even the swirls of the cartogram reflect.”
The centralization comes from the arbitrary boundaries of each state. 50% +1 schmuck creates the impression the whole state is of the same opinion, which is where we get the red/blue state meme the media so dearly loves to sell us.
Cool maps. I’m a map geek.
Ben,
The political divisions represented by State boundaries don’t exist? You must love the Senate then.
Switching to a pure popular vote would seem to give an advantage to the democrats: their voters are more concentrated geographically. The Republicans could never win if they had to visit every red county, it’d take ten years.
@Andy,
There’s no such thing as “South Carolinians think X”, because those lines don’t define anything of note. Individuals and localities are far more diverse than this yet we’re told endlessly that states are monolithic.