Red and Blue
I just want to share some interesting maps of the election results I ran across today.
This one has red and blue colored by county, rather than by state. It dramatically shows how much the red/blue divide is a rural/urban one — the map is overwhelmingly red even though the gap in the popular vote was just a few million. Ole Eichhorn also compares it to a similar display of the 2000 results.
This one shades each state somewhere on the Red-Blue continuum, depending on the percentage of the popular vote. It’s a visible reminder that there are people who supported both candidates in every state of the union.
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I’m officially looking for a new job. While I still think there’s a need for dedicated career civil servants to provide a continuity of knowledge across administrations, I don’t think I have the temperament to do it for another 4 years. If any of my readers have suggestions for places to look, I’d love to hear them.
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Jimbo commented that fillibustering isn’t an effective legislative strategy. I disagree — I think we’d be a lot worse off now than we are if the Dems hadn’t held the line in the Senate against the excesses of the Republicans in the House. And I don’t think the public ever really holds the minority accountable for lack of action. But it’s certainly not enough to stand against things — we need to say what we’re for as well.
And we need to pay more attention to local and state politics. The Hot Flash Report provides a nice summary of how the Christian Right started in the 1980s by getting their people to turn out for school board races, and built a base that has carried them forward to today. The closest Democratic equivalent is unions, which are getting weaker and weaker by the year.
November 5th, 2004 at 3:06 pm
A comment on filibustering…. Each house, constitutionally, has the right to set its own rules. The Senate chose to include a rule that allows a Senator to have unlimited time to speak and that that Senator can turn the time over to whomever they want which is where the fillibuster comes from. What I have a problem with is when a Senate rule creates a situation that is unconstitutional. Specifically, the constitution requires a simple majority vote to approve a judge. The fillibuster effectively changes that to a 2/3 majority. There’s no way that a Senate rule of operation should supersede the Constitution.