County presidential electoral map

Today the Oregonian published a map purporting to show that the country hasn't become more “blue” based on the blue-shift of counties, using this sort of map:

It seems from the map lie most of the country is “red”!  This supports the false meme that the US is a “center-right” country.  But it flies in the face of reality: not only did Obama win, but Democrats took many more US House seats, Senate seats, and strengthened state positions.  It was a rout!  But you wouldn't know it from this map.  Why is that?  This is because they ignore the fact that we are NOT a “geocracy”, but are a democracy (leaving aside the Electoral College and the fact that the presidential race is not the only way to define red/blueness).

When a cartographic projection of the counties is made, which adjusts the county size to make it proportionate to the population of the counties, it becomes much more obvious why Democrats did so well across the board:

Most of the county is in fact “blue”.  When viewed this way, it is much clearer why a so-called “red” state of Montana just reelected a Democrat as governor.

In fact, except for the presidential Electoral College county, areas aren't red or blue, they are purple -- a Democratic vote counts toward a Senator wherever in the state it is.  Here's what the real balance looks like:

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Comments

[Joe]

You need to put the mushrooms away. Your argument is clouded by the haze, purple that is.