Certainly if you read some of the (understandably) “depressed”:http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2004/11/03/the_mourning_after.html and “very”:http://www.boingboing.net/2004/11/03/kerry_concedes.html “angry”:http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=891 Democrats you could feel that there is now a culture war between the red and blue states (thanks to the idiotic electoral college and its all or nothing state-based counting mechanism). If you look at the electoral maps there seems to be a clear divide, but look at this:
from Jeff Culver via
Boing Boing. There are still plenty of Democrats in most of the “red” states – just not enough to swing the election this time around. My principal political worry is that this will encourage the Democrats to lurch into centrist populism instead of looking for appealling new ideas and genuinely charismatic leadership, but there will be plenty of time for healing and sober reflection in the next four years.
Update: “Robert J. Vanderbei” has produced a similar ‘purple’ map but “county by county”:http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/ instead of state by state with finer detail. “Informedpublic”:http://www.informedpublic.com/ has a “modest redistricting proposal”:http://www.informedpublic.com/redistrict.jpg.
