Color me confused

Several times recently, I've run into people who claim that red has always represented Republicans and blue the Democrats. There was just one problem in my mind. I don't remember that being the case. While allowing that my young age prohibits any amount of certainty in my memory, I do remember watching returns from the 1992 presidential election. The news anchors were showing state-by-state results in bar graphs which were red, blue and yellow. That was Perot's year, hence the third color. If I remember correctly, the colors were either shuffled from state-to-state or were uniformly Bush=red, Clinton=blue, Perot=yellow.
I don't remember getting the impression at that point that the colors were set in stone. It's only recently that the results have been color-coded so consistent using GOP red and Democrat blue.

Now people have often noted with irony, whether interested in the history or not, that the colors really should be reversed, if we are going to be consistent with the consistent world-wide use of red by leftist regimes. My observations of Canadian politics follows that train of thinking as well: The Liberal Party has an official color of red, the Conservatives of blue (hard to take too seriously though since they have party logos that remind one of sports teams).

The political parties in the United States have never felt bound by such delineations, though. Remember, our party symbols are animals and the artistic impressions of them are both red, white and blue.

So what inspired this post? Well, someone is upset, or at least a little irritated with the current arrangement and decided a t-shirt was one way to express it in fine detail. Their history is correct. The Reagan victories (or at least one of them) was illustrated by the media using "Reagan blue." That's just fact.

Frankly, I wonder whether the maker of the t-shirt is more upset by being designated by the color red than by that arbitrary decision being made by random news media producers.

Here's his suggested Obama victory map:
Yeah, a little over the top, but oh well.

So the question:
Do you care enough about this issue to by a shirt and wear it proudly around your fellow political nerd friends?

Report efficiency

I'm no great proofreader (as many here know), but this brochure just jumped out at me when I discovered it today in a local city hall on a wall rack. It's from the State Auditor's office (see second scan). I don't know how on earth it made it all the way to the rack with no one spotting it. However, there must be no doubt in our minds that Rep. Rick Larsen congressman read the stimulus bill. He wouldn't have been too busy trying to get the federal government to send millions to the WTA for new biodiesel compatible buses. Not OUR Rick!



Remember now, if you see efficiency, REPORT IT!

Electoral eccentricity

An interesting piece in the Washington Times paints a fascinating picture of the possible outcomes of the presidential election should an electoral tie exist -- which apparently isn't that far out.

Imagine this: President Barack Obama with Sarah Palin ending up as his vice president (all because Lieberman and Cheney's tie breaker in the Senate).

Sound impossible? It's not. There are at least a half-dozen plausible ways the election can end in a tie, and at least one very plausible possibility - giving each candidate the states in which they now lead in the polls, only New Hampshire - which went Republican in 2000 and Democratic in 2004, each time by just 1.5 percent - needs to swap to the Republican column to wind up with a 269-269 tie.

That's just one of the scenarios possible with our current system. There "doomsday" thinkers out there who predict constitutional wrangling will put us in a state of paralysis.

The Times is right to bring up the presidential race between Adams and Jefferson, in which Aaron Burr betrayed Jefferson and collected an equal number of electoral votes for himself, deadlocking the electoral college and later congress for dozens of votes in a row. Adams and the Federalists, who were far behind both Burr and Jefferson, finally threw their weight behind Jefferson at the behest of Alexander Hamilton. While Burr did later challenge Hamilton to a dual, it happened a few provocations down the road.

Some people will do anything to get elected

This is an email forward I received from a political friend. I think this is the right method of overcoming the Palin advantage. It looks great on him!