Visualizing the Election

CNN and other news outlets would have you believe this is still a divided country with red states and blue states.

But a better visualization would shade the areas based not upon who won the state, but by the degree to which they won the state. And the states themselves shouldn't be represented as a function of their geographic size, but rather the size of their population. Here we have just such a picture, and its clear, we are all purple now. More can be found here.

Irony

I find it ironic that African Americans celebrated the election of Obama as a symbolic victory for the civil rights movement, while they voted in droves to rescind civil rights for California's gay population. How soon the oppressed become the oppressors.

I have not voted Republican in the last three presidential elections, and I think Greg Mankiw captures the reasons quite succinctly. And heck, I didn't go to Harvard. I just hope the Republicans find their way out of the social conservative woods, back to their fiscal conservative roots. Or maybe they spend the time studying a map of the world with Gov. Palin?

Voter Turnout

Voter Turnout, via Andrew Gelman.

Ray Fair's equation did pretty well. Underpredicting Obama's share by 1.1%.

Andrew has some more comments here, with plenty of data analysis.