Harmless Election Question
Sac D
seen in the past few months, and especially this week, showed the Democratic
states in BLUE and the Republican ones in RED. This held true whether it
was a newspaper,magazine, television, or online.
Unless I am quite mistaken, in the past it was always the opposite: Demos =
Red, GOP = Blue.
So what has prompted this switch? And how did it get conveyed to -every-
form of mass media?
I guess the bottom line is that the parties have become so interchangeable
these days that the colors are too. But still....
-=Sac D=-
Brent Wiescamp
"Sac D" <Sa...@Oaktown.org> wrote in message
news:2uv2prF...@uni-berlin.de...
I saw something about this. The Democrats filed a lawsuit or something
because of the whole stigma of red. You know, "better dead than red" and all
that. The Republicans offered, as a possible solution, changing it to a
color called, "Predominant Red" which turned out to be pink. That solved
nothing. The least of which was the whole, "Pinko Commie" angle. They
decided to go with a coin toss and brought in a NFL referee thinking that he
had plenty of experience flipping a coin. Bush got to call the toss and
called heads, in the air. The ref responded, "Tails is the call" and of
course it came up heads. The ref ignored all of Bush's arguments. Kerry
picked blue, of course, to get rid of that whole red stigma thingy. The
Republicans filed lawsuits immediately after but nothing was decided before
the election.
That's what I heard anyway.
Raoul
aloha
LD
"Brent Wiescamp" <wies...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:10okoi3...@corp.supernews.com...
M. Zaiem Beg
->Hey, what has happened in America? It seems like every election map I've
->seen in the past few months, and especially this week, showed the Democratic
->states in BLUE and the Republican ones in RED. This held true whether it
->was a newspaper,magazine, television, or online.
->Unless I am quite mistaken, in the past it was always the opposite: Demos =
->Red, GOP = Blue.
->So what has prompted this switch? And how did it get conveyed to -every-
->form of mass media?
->I guess the bottom line is that the parties have become so interchangeable
->these days that the colors are too. But still....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17079-2004Nov1.html
--
M. Zaiem Beg zb...@iglou.com
Adam Smith
What I heard a long time ago (so I may not be remembering right) was
that they usually tried to assign the colors so that the expected
winner would come out blue, because a lot of blue looks better on TV
than a lot of red. So the Republicans were blue in '80, '84, and '88
and then the Democrats were blue in '92 and '96, because everyone
pretty much knew how those elections were going to come out beforehand.
I'm not sure what happened in 2000. Gore almost won the electoral
vote, and did win the popular vote, but most of the night-before polls
were favoring Bush, so I would have thought they'd have made the
Republicans blue. But for whatever reason, they went the way they
did.
After that election, the whole concept of "red states" and "blue
states" got kind of enmeshed in the culture, so they stayed that way
in 2004, and I think they'll be sticking with blue for Democrats and
red for Republicans for a long time.
--
Adam Smith
"I think we got outplayed. I heard the term 'trap game.' I think it
was just a crap game. We played like ----."
-- Jake Plummer
Brent Wiescamp
"Raoul" <Rao...@hawaii.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Zotid.63324$Kl3....@twister.socal.rr.com...
> Everybody else gets a cool color, why do I gotta be Mr. Pink?
Because you're a faggot, all right?
Don't blame me -- that's the next line.
Scott Stone
I heard that the compromise originally worked out was the Republicans
would be green, and that left the Democrats with the only other color
that would look good on the tv, yellow.
But the republicans complained that they didn't want such a wimpy color...
;-)
Raoul
>
> Because you're a faggot, all right?
HEY! WHAT THE FU...
> Don't blame me -- that's the next line.
Oh, yeah, I knew that. ; )
aloha
LD
Raoul
> would be green, and that left the Democrats with the only other color
> that would look good on the tv, yellow.
>
> But the republicans complained that they didn't want such a wimpy color...
"The sun's not yellow, it's chicken." - BD
aloha
LD
raj
> "The sun's not yellow, it's chicken." - BD
Oooo, one of my favorite 'funny' BD lines ... and there ain't too many funny
BD lines!
Bob
Raoul
>
> Oooo, one of my favorite 'funny' BD lines ... and there ain't too many
funny
> BD lines!
BD's got a lotta lines that are at least funny to me. The week leading up
to the election all my Bushie friends mocked me for voting Libertarian,
allowing me to howl at 'em "You just want to be on the side that's
winninnnnnnn'". Of course, being morons, they didn't get it.
aloha
LD
Fillard Millmore
spake thus and so:
I guess it would be too easy to just leave all the states white and
put a "D" or an "R" on them. Then I suppose everybody who wasn't a
Cauc would start complaining.
Here. This should cover it:
Fuck everybody. Really. Everybody.
Color me fed up.
Fillard Millmore
Resident of the United States
"Doctors have throughout time made fortunes
on killing their patients with their cures. The
difference in psychiatry is that it is the death
of the soul." R.D. Laving.
rnr_construction
Nice try Brent- The real story was the Fucking Republicans " Accidently"
brought the wrong jerseys.
WTF who does that?
Raoul
> brought the wrong jerseys.
> WTF who does that?
LOL! Yeeeahh!! Nicely done.
aloha
LD
Fillard Millmore
<rnr_cons...@comcast.net> spake thus and so:
LMAO!
Sac D
because he linked a legit story that was probably very detailed and
informative. Good work. Not being registered for that site, however,
means I just have to assume all that based on his prior sterling record at
being "the man" on these kind of things.
Brent wins the award for working the hardest on his response... although it
was so bizarre that the jury is still out on whether or not it qualifies for
other categories.
And the overall winner is.... mr_construction, who gave a response that took
this from "off topic" to ON topic with a minimum of words. It also made me
LMAO, as it was based on a wacky circumstance that's actually happened in
recent years.
Thanks to everyone who played.
-=Sac D=-
p.s. Honorable mention to Fillard, for grumpyest reply.
Brent Wiescamp
"rnr_construction" <rnr_cons...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Oa6dnU74AdP...@comcast.com...
>
> Nice try Brent- The real story was the Fucking Republicans "
Accidently"
> brought the wrong jerseys.
> WTF who does that?
LOL! I knew I was missing something in the story. Thanks for filling it in.
Brent Wiescamp
"Sac D" <Sa...@Oaktown.org> wrote in message
> Okay, I'm going to assume that MZB wins the award for most astute
answer...
> because he linked a legit story that was probably very detailed and
> informative. Good work. Not being registered for that site, however,
> means I just have to assume all that based on his prior sterling record at
> being "the man" on these kind of things.
>
Yeah, and I thought I had a subscription there too. Because it's FREE! All
you had to do was fill out a simple form. I musta blocked that cookie.
> Brent wins the award for working the hardest on his response... although
it
> was so bizarre that the jury is still out on whether or not it qualifies
for
> other categories.
>
Whooo Hoooo! I think.
> And the overall winner is.... mr_construction, who gave a response that
took
> this from "off topic" to ON topic with a minimum of words. It also made
me
> LMAO, as it was based on a wacky circumstance that's actually happened in
> recent years.
>
Classic.
> Thanks to everyone who played.
>
> -=Sac D=-
>
> p.s. Honorable mention to Fillard, for grumpyest reply.
Uh huh. But should he get an award for normalcy?
Fillard Millmore
Where's my fuckin' plaque, you cheapskate.
M. Zaiem Beg
->Okay, I'm going to assume that MZB wins the award for most astute answer...
->because he linked a legit story that was probably very detailed and
->informative. Good work. Not being registered for that site, however,
->means I just have to assume all that based on his prior sterling record at
->being "the man" on these kind of things.
Oops. Didn't know you had to register. Odd; it didn't make me. Looks like
if you go there via google, it's cool. If you just copy and paste the
link, it makes you register. Hrm.
Anyway, in the spirit of the rampant copyright violations that go on in
this newsgroup, forever archived for lawyers to peruse, here you go:
Elephants Are Red, Donkeys Are Blue
Color Is Sweet, So Their States We Hue
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Tonight, as the results of this too-close-to-call election trickle in,
voters will find out not just who they've chosen to lead them, but where
they live -- in "red" or "blue" America.
The TV networks' electoral maps will turn red once again when President
Bush wins a state, and blue when John Kerry claims one. The evening's talk
will likely break along red and blue lines. DanPeterTom will discuss which
states might go red, which are trending blue, and which, depending on
their ultimate chromatic disposition, could decide the election.
Red and blue, of course, have become more than just the conveniently
contrasting colors of TV graphics. They've become shorthand for an entire
sociopolitical worldview. A "red state" bespeaks not just a Republican
majority but an entire geography (rectangular borders in the country's
midsection), an iconography (Bush in a cowboy hat), and a series of
cultural cliches (churches and NASCAR). "Blue states" suggest something
on, and of, the coastal extremes, urban and latte-drinking. Red states --
to reduce the stereotypes to an even more vulgar level -- are a little bit
country, blues are a little more rock-and-roll.
How has it come to this? What cosmic decorator did the states' colors,
reducing a continental nation's complicated political and cultural
realities to a two-tone palette?
The answers are somewhat murky -- we may have to wait for a recount to be
sure -- but it appears the 2000 election, NBC's graphics department and
David Letterman all played critical roles.
Before Bush's disputed victory over Al Gore four years ago, there was no
consensus on the color of liberalism or conservatism. Indeed the scheme
was often reversed, reflecting traditional European associations (red
being not just the color of communism but of Great Britain's Labor Party,
too).
In 1976, NBC identified states won by Gerald Ford in blue and Jimmy
Carter's states in red. On election night in 1980, ABC News showed Ronald
Reagan's march to the White House as a series of blue lights on a map,
with Carter's states in red. Time magazine assigned red to the Democrats
and blue to the Republicans in its election graphics in every election
from 1988 to 2000. The Washington Post's election graphics for the 2000
election were Republican-blue, Democrat-red.
The first reference to "red states" and "blue states," according to a
database search of newspapers, magazines and TV news transcripts since
1980, occurred on NBC's "Today" show about a week before the 2000
election. Matt Lauer and Tim Russert discussed the projected alignment of
the states, using a map and a color scheme that had first shown up a few
days earlier on NBC's sister cable network, MSNBC. "So how does [Bush] get
those remaining 61 electoral red states, if you will?" Russert asked at
one point.
In an interview yesterday, Russert disclaimed credit for coining the
red-state, blue-state distinction. "I'm sure I wasn't the first to come up
with it," he said. "But I will take credit for the white board," Russert's
signature, hands-on electoral vote tracker.
As the 2000 election became a 36-day recount debacle, the commentariat
magically reached consensus on the proper colors. Newspapers began
discussing the race in the larger, abstract context of red vs. blue. The
deal may have been sealed when Letterman suggested a week after the vote
that a compromise would "make George W. Bush president of the red states
and Al Gore head of the blue ones."
All of this doesn't answer two fundamental questions: Why red? Why blue?
Stephen Hess, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington
University, points to the obvious association with the American flag. He
adds that those colors look good on a TV screen, too.
Besides, other combinations wouldn't work. We've already tried blue and
gray, and we know how that ended up. It would be wrong, for obvious
reasons, to divide the country into "black" states and "white" states. And
it just wouldn't look right to pick a more out-there palette, such as
taupe-teal or puce-mauve.
Some conspiracy-mind Republicans resent being colored red because that hue
tends to be associated with negative traits (fiery, bloody, hot,
red-in-the-face), although red is also associated with love. Blue,
meanwhile, is peaceful and tranquil, the color of sky and water, but it's
also the color of cold and depression.
The real problem may lie in the superficial caricatures that the colors
conjure. Is it really accurate, after all, to describe New Mexico as a
"blue" state when Gore won it by just 366 votes in 2000? In California --
a state so blue that neither of the two leading candidates bothered
campaigning much there this year -- voters have in recent years approved
initiatives repealing racial preferences and bilingual education, and have
ousted a Democratic governor in favor of a Republican. Ohio --
historically a red state -- is close enough that Kerry might eke out a
narrow victory, but it is also poised to pass overwhelmingly a
constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
The whole red-blue division got an eloquent rebuke at the Democratic
National Convention this summer, when Senate candidate Barack Obama told
the cheering crowd, "We coach Little League in blue states and we have gay
friends in red states. We pray to an awesome God in blue states and we
don't like federal agents sniffing around our libraries in red states."
Red? Blue? In roses and violets maybe, but politics and culture come in
many hues, and many of them clash.