2012 electoral map

[Mad Jay]

Originally Posted by crescent

(Hijack) It also highlight how parition would just not work - the states are not unified enough. If things ever did get so bad that states seriously considered seceding, it would be messy - with parts of some states wanting to secede while other parts of the same state want to stay in the union. Large cities would tend toward staying in the union, while the surrounding rural areas would want to secede.

If there is seccesion, people who don't agree with the Constitution of the seceded nation will either have to suck it up, or move. That's how partitions work

IMO, seccession will work not because of politics, but because of economics. The US as a whole provides a lot of stability to individual states. Even if the 2 nations for an economic union along the lines of the European Union, the inherent instability would destroy economies of both sides

[Hero_Mike]

I can't put very much value in these pictures because in some of those very thinly populated counties, that "50% plus one" making it red, may have the margin of victory very close to one. I've been desperately curious to see the vote counted in Florida, and when I looked at some of the counties there, the total number of votes was in the hundreds. In a major city, you'll have more people one one street voting than in that county. In a city with skyscrapers, you could have more people from one building vote than in those counties.

I speak from experience seeing how this doesn't make a lot of sense - looking at the same kind of political map for Canada (where we wrote the book on low population density), and you can see how it's not very useful at all.

[erwins]

Originally Posted by Hero_Mike

I speak from experience seeing how this doesn't make a lot of sense - looking at the same kind of political map for Canada (where we wrote the book on low population density), and you can see how it's not very useful at all.

It's not useful except to reinforce the right's skewed beliefs about ivory-tower and marginal liberals being at odds with the vast majority of the "heartland." It's a way of consoling themselves about being rejected--they were only rejected in a tiny part of the country (but of course, by a majority of Americans...).

[Ulkomaalainen]

I know, a hijack, and I'm sorry about that. I was really wondering about the bright blue country in the middle of the red, and I think I narrowed it down to Shannon County, SD - Wikipedia seems to agree that is a very blue place. But how comes that a comparatively rural area within Republican strongholds is so avidly Democratic?

[mags]

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

[Hero_Mike]

Originally Posted by Ulkomaalainen

I know, a hijack, and I'm sorry about that. I was really wondering about the bright blue country in the middle of the red, and I think I narrowed it down to Shannon County, SD - Wikipedia seems to agree that is a very blue place. But how comes that a comparatively rural area within Republican strongholds is so avidly Democratic?

At first I thought it might be a college town, but that is not the case. Shannon County is entirely on an Indian reservation, very poor, has no county seat, and is a dry county.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon...,_South_Dakota

[Debunker]

Not to belabor the discussion, but county by county maps are really meaningless when you know that Los Angeles county has a higher population than 42 entire states.

[ThistleS]

Yes, a county by county map is only slightly more illuminating than a state by state map.

[Xia]

Originally Posted by Debunker

Not to belabor the discussion, but county by county maps are really meaningless when you know that Los Angeles county has a higher population than 42 entire states.

Yeah and you've also got New York City and then Cook County (containing Chicago) coming up after LA county.

[RobDBlackwolf]

Link to Picture

Here is a map showing the different areas in density and how they voted as overlay on a map showing how the different counties voted.

[ganzfeld]

Oh, that's beautiful! I'd like to see it in its original image format; the JPG distorts it a bit.