The Great Divide
A county by county presidential voter U.S. map breakdown. Rural versus urban appears to be a greater schism than red state/blue state model.
An interesting tidbit: the number of counties that the Democrats or Republicans won by less than 5 percent appears to have decreased from 404 (229 Bush, 175 Gore) in 2000 to 292 (162 Bush, 131 Kerry) in 2004. It isn't clear to me if all counties are included in the 2004 count of close counties, but it appears enough are to raise some questions about increasing polarization. I hope to identify those counties that moved from (or even to) those groups once I get my hands on complete official returns.
Another overlooked, but interesting tidbit about state tax burdens :
I have also found it interesting to compare data on per capita dollar returns from federal taxes (available from the Tax Foundation at taxfoundation.org) with the state-by-state red/blue map. Surprisingly, blue states (considered "liberal") tend to contribute more in federal taxes than they receive in federal largess, whereas the red states (considered to be "conservative" and against big government) tend to receive more from the federal government than they contribute. In other words, via their federal taxes, the folks in blue states like Connecticut and Massachusetts are effectively subsidizing the folks in red states like Alaska and Montana.
Comments
With President Bush's convincing victory in the electoral college and his overwhelming majority win of the popular vote, that should have finally silenced the left's sour grapes over the 2000 election. You know, all that business about Bush stealing the election, and being "selected, not elected" and other such nonsense. But this year, with the Poodle conceding on November 3 and very few lawsuits filed, that should have erased all doubt, right?
Wrong. Believe it or not, the Bigfoot/UFO/Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party has been buzzing on the Internet about how President Bush "stole" the election of 2004. With George Bush's victory so convincing, what possible leg could they have to stand on?
They're complaining that George Bush won some heavily Democratic counties in Florida. Do they have any proof of fraud? Nope. They're saying that there's no way a county with Democratic registrations as high as 70% could have gone to Bush. The only problem with that theory is that it has happened before. Ronald Reagan won that same support, as did Bush's father in 1988. So there's really no surprise there.
A few Congressional Democrats have written the General Accounting Office asking for an investigation. George Bush won the election fair and square, but just as in 2000, the left can't stand the result, so they'll question the process.
After all, no one in their right mind would vote for George W. Bush, would they?