Do you think the terms Red State and Blue State have meaning?

Question

Why or why not?

I think they are useful terms. It's not that a blue state is 90% Democrat and a red state is 90% Republican.

It's the fact that Republicans running in blue states have to run as liberals and Democrats running in red states have to run as conservatives. For example, Rudolph Guiliani. He's a Republican but he's pro-choice, pro-civil unions for gays, and pro-common sense gun control laws. Zell Miller, on the other hand, was a Democratic senator from Georgia. He didn't get elected by running as a liberal. He ran as a conservative. In fact, he spoke in support of Dubya at the 2004 Republican convention.

If theses differences between regions did not exist, you would not see the northeast and west coast vote as a bloc for Democrats and the confederate south and midwest vote for Republicans.

Only a handful of states are swing states.

Jester. Land doesn't vote. People do.

Answer 1

That's primarily why political parties "balance" their tickets. Kennedy, as example, would never have been elected president had he not had Johnson as a running mate.
Same reason Johnson picked Humphrey in 64.

Answer 2

Thanks for pointing out that people vote, not land. That ignorant comment by Jester was bugging me.

The terms have meaning for the presidential election due to the electoral college. Generally the Republican will get the electoral votes from a Red State and the Democrat from a Blue State, making the few swing states disproportionately important. In terms of local or even statewide elections, the terms don't mean much at all.

Answer 3

My state, PA, is practically all red, yest it is considered a blue state because of 2 major cities (Phila & Pitt). There is a saying here that anything outside those 2 cities s considered Pennsyltucky.

Answer 4

It is not even a question of red state or blue state. The majority of the country is red, there a few blue zones, but those zones have higher populations and more votes.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm

ADDED: the attached link shows conclusively there is no blue or red state, it is mixed. Anyone who uses the phrases red state/ blue state are demonstrating their ignorance of the distribution of voters.

Answer 5

Actually, the colors make perfect sense if you think of it as good versus evil.

Answer 6

I'm partial to purple.

Answer 7

I think the colors are mixed up. Red is traditionally the color of communism.