Keith Devens .com

59.4 million votes to 55.9 million votes is a divided nation, regardless of who you voted for or what statistic you try to use to make it sound more unified.

Looks pretty unified to me ^[1]. Also, DJ Drummond points out that the highest percentage of the popular vote that any president has gotten was 61%. So, 40% of the population always opposes the current president--usually much more--so I guess we're always a divided nation. Though Bush is actually the first candidate since 1988 to get more than 50% of the vote.

Footnotes:
[1]: Image courtesy of NewsMax. (I've been holding out for a better image, but that'll have to do.)

Hmm, you know... given that the Democratic party is such a clear minority party in America, I might just as well argue that that indicates a unified nation, "regardless of who you voted for or what statistic you try to use to make it sound more [divided]."

Once again, 59.4 million votes to 55.9 million votes is a divided nation. And, once again, it doesn't matter what statistic, image, etc., you use to change that.

Either way, 59.4 million people voted for Bush and 55.9 million voted for Kerry. The "80%+ that voted for Bush" is irrelevant. There are a lot of counties in southern states as well as in some western states where a small population is considered a county.

Even that map you pasted shows the difference. Look at the number of small, hick counties that exist in the middle portion of the country. More counties voted for Bush -- what's the relevance of that comment? It doesn't change the fact of the actual number of people that voted for each candidate.

Relevance... that's the point. That's part of the reason I posted all of these statistics. Without interpretation they're largely irrelevant, just as, without interpretation, your 59.4 to 55.9 million statistic is irrelevant. What's your point, exactly? Our elections are always relatively close. By the same measure, like I pointed out, you can claim that we're always a divided nation. That may be true in some sense (I think the person I quoted above gave a very good interpretation of the data (which is why I quoted it): that the division is largely between rural and suburban areas and some cities, the cities being out of touch with the rest of America.) But of course, the question is: why mention it now?

Of course, the reality is much more complex than the map I posted - this post at Boing Boing and this map to go along with it are fascinating.

I don't know why I'm posting this 'cause it's not going to convince you or anybody else. Once somebody takes a point of view, it's very hard to sway them even if you've got proof to the contrary staring them in the face.

Keith, that map makes things look even more divided. It's a division between town and country. Virtually all of the blue spots is centred around population centres, which are, ironically, the ones most liable to be hit by a terrorist attack. Obviously the people most likely to be hurt by terrorism thought that Kerry would be better able to handle it: it's a real qualitative observation from the data on the map.

The red is rural. It Makes things look unified because it's all so lightly populated. Some of those counties only contain a population of a few thousand at most! It makes things look skewed if you just look at the map of counties.

Your point of view also implies that those urban votes matter less than the rural vote. But that can't be right, can it?

The US had a more-or-less even population distribution, the observations you took from the map could be taken as valid. But it doesn't. It's highly concentrated within the coastal areas, within the cities.

Taking the map alone as evidence that the US is not divided is intellectually dishonest, bordering on blatant propaganda and biasing of the facts for your own end. You know well that you can't take one set of data and use that alone.

I'm sorry, but 51% against 49% shows division, not to mention the fact that 150,000 more voters (a drop in the ocean in US terms) is all Kerry needed to get elected. What the map shows is what those divisions are.

I think I might repost this, fleshed out a bit, on my blog this weekend, if you don't mind.

An even more honest map: http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/

Well said, Keith Gaughan. That's what I was aiming for.

Keith, that last map you posted was the same one I linked to above.

My point was that I was calling out the contradiction in brian's post. He was using a statistic to counter another statistic while at the same time decrying statistics. It's all meaningless without providing some interpretation. I pointed out that historically, by his measure of looking at the vote difference, this country can always be said to be divided. Is 51%-48% divided and 55%-45% not divided? Why? Why refer to the country as divided now... why not during the Clinton years and before when the elected president twice didn't even get the majority of the vote?

My point in all this talk is that I was attempting to prod someone to come out and stop hiding what he actually believes. What you believe is not just the passive "the country is divided", but the active, "Bush's actions divided the country", the unstated assertion being that it's Bush's fault and that he should have acted differently. That's what all this talk of the country being divided is about, yet no one felt it necessary to flesh out their underlying point, since that would move from the realm of all these meaningless statistics into an actual argument the person might have to back up.

Yes, you are right. Almost every US Citizen voted for GWB, Keith.

... U Happy now?

(argh.... no.... 'nuff said ....)

Sinalco... you have a pattern of commenting here and completely missing the point. It's getting annoying.

Roughly 60 % went to the voting machines.

some more than just "a few" of those voted PRO Bush.

in kindergarden mathematics ... this maks roughly a bit less than 1/3 of the U.S. Citizens are "pro Bush".

Great start for a "non divided Country".

What part about "missing the point" did you not understand?

But, kudos, since I've never seen anyone so desperate that they invoke the people who didn't vote to claim that they're anti-Bush.

The problem with the division is also this: Those who are opposed to Bush are often STRONGLY opposed to him. And that adds to the division, I think.

One sign of this strong opposition is that many leading newspapers went out and actively said that they supported Kerry, and so did a lot of artists, such as Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M.

I don't think this has occured that many times earlier, has it?

I don't think this has occured that many times earlier, has it?

You're making stuff up Newspapers have long endorsed candidates, and Hollywood/the entertainment industry has always been liberal.

Ok... I might have been making that up. It just occurs to me that the statements made by newspapers and artists at least were somewhat stronger this time.

"The cities [are] out of touch with the rest of America." Really? 80% of the population lives in cities. 30% live in one of the megacities: New York, L.A., Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Dallas, and Houston. Surely it's the rural areas who are out of touch with the cities. Don't forget the electoral college gives greater weight to rural states because of the 3 vote per state minimum. (Source: census.gov)

I really like your map. But, pease forgive me, I have a lot of questions. I am an ignorant Briton living in Japan.

So why do the country folk like Bush? Why do the townsfolk like Kelly?

What is it the blue bit in the middle West? It seems to be in the middle of nowhere. Are there cities there? Why are there Kelly supporters there?

What is it about the spur in the middle South? Why is it blue? Are there a lot of immigrants?

Why is the Mississippi basin blue?

Why isn't the Chigaco area blue? It is a city. Chicago (I have been there!) is on the lake but the bit next to the lake is red. It seems as if the outskirts of Chicago are blue.

What is the patch of blue on the border with Canada in the middle West? Who are they? Scandanavians?

Here in Japan the conservative party (the LDP) gets into power in perhaps a similar way. Or rather, how similar is the situation?

1) In Japan the conservative party has policies that support (send money to) the rural districts. There are lots of bridges to nowhere, dams which silt up, rural roads which people do not travel upon, and rural civic halls that people do not use (much). Additionally agricultural products are heavily protected so that fruit is a luxury item and rice is like gold dust! Is there pork-barrelling/redistribution of wealth of this sort in the US? When I think of pork-barrelling/redistribution of wealth in the US I think of democrats giving money to unemployed town dwellers, but I may be wrong. Do the republican "hicks" get paid to vote for Bush or do they do it for more idealogical reasons?

2) In Japan voters in those rural districts have a greater say in politics. Because the representational system is geared so that there are people to represent areas irrespective of the population. Is the US proportionally represented (per capita), or like Japan, is there a land area factor?

3) In Japan the people living in the countryside are liked by the people living in the cities because most of the people living in the cities are descendants of those in the countryside. This means that even if the cities loose they quite like, and do not feel divided with, those which they are loosing to. I guess that with the relatively high immigrant population in the US, many of the townsfolk feel less in tune with their pioneering forebears/country cousins? In Japan there is a strong sense that the tradition, core, roots of Japan are in the countryside. The cities of Japan are, on the other hand seen as being Westernised-- i.e. not very Japanese. But when I think of the US, I think of big cities as being representative of the American dream and "the West" or "America". How niave of me? The real America is hick-ville? If so what is their idealogy? What unites them?

Also...

1) As a poster above pointed out, it is the people in the cities in the US that might have reason to be scared of terrorist attack. Why is it that the people that have little reason to be scared of terrorist attack suppport 'the war against terrorism?' (which we hear was a cetnral electional issue)

2) How do republicans feel about being represented in this way? How do they rationalise the "hick factor"?

Far too many questions. Anyway, I like your map.

Tim

PS. I just can't resist...my own feelings are mixed.

I am anti-government spending (most governments seem to spend far more than they have). So I should like the right. I believe in a safety net, but providing only the basics. Why does "right wing" Bush spend more than Clinton? Weird.

I hate bombing people. It seems so silly (some sort of macho thing?) and painful. I am against the war in Iraq. Why do sensible, non-spend-crazy, right-wing also like to kill?

I thought that the democrats were meant to support the weak and opressed. Why did they choose a very rich guy? Kelly is so rich he seems aristocratic. Shouldn't it be the other way round? Bush looks like a blue collar worker by comparison.

Kelly had a major lack of charisma. How did the democrats come up with someone that seems so undead, like a zombie? You'd expect some really caring-sharing-touchy-feely-burning-with-passion-every-day guy but they gave you a really repressed English man. I swear that he went to an English public school (I did, I know).

Since I am very anti-war-in-iraq, I would, if I were a US citizen, have voted ABB but I am really confused. I don't understand.

Tim