This image has been making the rounds on FB:

(open in new window to embigify)

I find it fascinating. Now I know for a fact that the electoral map doesn't always divide up that way. And I know for a fact that a lot of the blue-states are really more like blue-urban-areas than states. Still, I am persuaded that the fact of Obama's being a black man has a lot to do with the electoral map, both this time around and back in 2008. The unusual states--VA, FL in particular, but also NC in 2008--really reflect the urbanization of those states on the one hand and the influx of folks from northern parts (and Hispanics). I'm not naive enough to think that the north is racist-free territory. I lived in Boston during the busing controversy days, and remember all too clearly this image:



In the background is Boston City Hall. The black man is a lawyer who had been negotiating the busing controversy in City Hall. The man with the flag . . . well, 'nuff shown, I guess.

But I do not think it's accidental that the pre-Civil War map matches up so well with the 2008/2012 electoral maps. Those electoral maps I think show clearly why Tricky Dicky initiated the "southern strategy" and why, when he pushed through the Civil Rights Act of '64, LBJ said that the Democrats had lost the South for generations.

I do think things are changing for the better on the racial front. But old habits and patters really take a long long time to die.

Boy howdy do I remember what was called "forced busing" in the Boston area.

Very interesting.

But if you look at this page

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2012/map/all_results.html

Click on "historical" tab and check the results from previous years successively to this year, the map is more fluid. Gradually evolving. Even with white candidates.

Still, one might say that the reasons for the grouping in 1846 is similar to current, because the red states are mostly rural and agricultural and blue being coastal and urbanized, industrial

Dave


Dave

OK.. I'm daft. What exactly is the correlation here?
I see blue states from current map aligning with the free states of earlier map.
I would think it would have been earlier map slave states/the south that would have been all blue.
? It's probably hitting me in the face...

Wow! That is remarkable.... As if nothing has changed.

OK.. had coffee. Get it now...lol.

Good morning, Nuc!

This should be shared around a lot. Uncanny. Or is it canny? If you change some states that have only recently trended blue, the map corresponds even more closely..

I wonder if those posting that map all over Facebook are implying a future civil war?