overrated

formerly known as "i make pretty pictures" because as a graphic designer, that is actually what some people think i do for a living, this blog will now be titled, "overrated" for a variety of reasons i do not feel like explaining. the focus will be somewhat eclectic, though sports, design, the arts and pop culture will be featured more and more. because these are the things that interest me.

Thursday, November 6

electoral maps and why they are called red and blue states

a couple of american political tidbits for you.

this link takes you to a site where they have mapped out the electoral votes of every us election since george washington dramatically carried 8 of 10 states and john adams (who carried the other 2) became the vp. actually, if you look at it, the loser of the first three elections became the vice president. hmm, that could be interesting if they still carried on that particular tradition.

i also read a note on uniwatch from josh starr who relates a story about how the republicans became the red states and the democrats became the blue states. i will repost the note in its entirety as its in the middle of a lengthly post over there. please, no one get mad.

I was a polling analyst for Mark Penn and Doug Schoen in 1995, when we were brought in by Dick Morris and Bill Clinton to do the polling for Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.

In 1995 and 1996, there were private weekly meetings (Wednesday nights) held in the White House residence on Wendesday nights to plan the campaign. It was a small group (Clinton, Morris, Penn, Schoen, Al Gore, Leon Panetta, Bob Squier, Bill Knapp, George Stephenopolous, maybe a few others). These meetings were later detailed, I believe after the election, by The New York Times.

For each week's meeting, I would develop maps of the status of the electoral college, as well as maps of media buys and visits by the Clinton and Dole campaigns. At the time, mapping software was making it easier to create these kinds of maps. I was known as "the Map Guy."

When you sit down to develop an electoral map, you have to actively decide which colors to use. I did some research at the library (this was before the extensive online resources we have today) and found that the networks were inconsistent in their assignment of colors to the different parties, so that wasn't helpful. And the parties themselves tended to use red, white, and blue - again, no help.

So I decided to assign the Democrats blue and Republicans red. I wavered between green and yellow for "toss-ups."

After a few weeks of meetings using these maps, Mark Penn came back to my office (something he rarely did) and said something like, "Josh, they love the maps, they're a big hit. The President loves it." He then said the President had asked him why we chose these colors for the parties.

As I explained to Mark, there were several reasons. For one, the term "Blue Dog Democrats" was thrown around in the early and mid-'90s, so the association stuck with me. In addition, we were centrist Democrats and I never liked the association of our party with red communism. So I wanted to symbolically throw the red back at the Republicans. I also saw the Republicans as more angry/red in the face/out of control, since this was the era of the Newt Gingrich and the Contact with America. In addition, I associated red with a "red light" and stopping, while blue connotes something more positive and forward-thinking. All of these were reasons that went into my decision.

So that was the genesis of the color selection.

From these meetings, the shorthand vernacular turned to using the terms "red states" and "blue states" and spread from the private meetings to conversations with political professionals and the media. By 2000, these terms had been part of the DC language for years.

The funny thing is, I am a public opinion researcher and we never tested the branding impact of the colors red and blue - yet this is one decision that (unintentionally) has had long-lasting brand implications.

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1 Comments:

  • At 6:54 AM , Blogger Mike said...

    Interesting. Definitely did not know that. Thanks for bringing this etymology to my attention.

     

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