I understand your point, but for discrete points the terms “red” and “blue” work. Particularly those for which they were invented – how states go in presidential elections.

(The only thing that pisses me off is that with the end of the Cold War the powers that be felt it incumbent on themselves not to hang “red state” around the necks of Commie-sympathizers, so they switched ‘em up. But I digress.) ;)

For the purposes of Pres. Elecs., VA is a red state, MASS a blue. TX is red, CA is blue. OH and FLA are “battleground states.”

It’s a bit crude, but for the limited purpose of presidential elections, it’s a useful shorthand that not ought be discarded.

Posted by Judge Smails on 25 January 02007 @ 9pm

Whatever. Colors are arbitrary. I remeber watching the 1988 Presidential elections and the colors were flipped. Blue was Republican and Red was Democratic.

These colors are just a way to oversimplify ideas for the masses who do not want to be educated but spoonfed their knowledge through soundbytes. There is no indepth coverage on the nuances. The media is happy to oblige them because not only does it give them a chance to place the news in neat, little boxes but it also allows them to sell more ads.

These “red” and “blue” monikers are also used to drive a wedge between us. “Oh we can write off Alabama…it’s just a red state.” “We can’t take CA, it’s too blue.” This leaves us precious little “battleground” and takes away the chance for real political discourse to occur in this country. Why consider the other viewpoint when it’s already been decided in your state?

Posted by Kevin on 26 January 02007 @ 9am

The wild success of Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy has demonstrated the folly of falling into the ‘red/blue’ trap. Start calling a state a red state and it leads to Democrats not even wanting to make an effort at winning there. Ditto with ‘blue states’ and Republican campaigns. Once you throw all that out the window and just look at it as a state to be won then all sorts of things become possible.

Posted by Jack on 26 January 02007 @ 9am

I get your point, but does AL go for the Repubs and CA for the Dems b/c of media oversimplification or b/c an (for practical purposes) insurmountable majority of voters in each state can be counted on to vote for the Repubs and Dems?

Sure, there can be sudden shifts when the political pendulum swings and gradual shifts due to demographics, but I don’t think more “indepth coverage on the nuances” would change anything about the political hue of either AL or CA.

Posted by Judge Smails on 26 January 02007 @ 9am

“Sure, there can be sudden shifts when the political pendulum swings and gradual shifts due to demographics, but I don’t think more “indepth coverage on the nuances” would change anything about the political hue of either AL or CA.”

When you actually start a discussion with someone, you would be surprised on what you can accomplish. If you look at the differences between national and state politics, you will see that Republicans can win in CA statewide and Democrats can win in southern states too. They have to be packaged right but the media would rather want the “liberal v. conservative” and “Republican v. Democrat” meme than to see people actually think for themselves. It makes for less work in their 24-hour news world.

But I think that Jack is right. Dean’s 50 state strategy does work. It would be folly to ignore it. Look at Montana, Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee. If we were to go by the Presidential model of looking at the situation, Democrats wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning except for maybe Ohio. But that would be ignoring the grassroots which helped immensely across the country for Democrats this cycle.

Posted by Kevin on 26 January 02007 @ 10am