I'm very disappointed that Kerry did not quite pull out a victory. Not surprised, but disappointed. I'm consoled that it was very, very close. And this map is not only interesting but feels better than the red and blue ones. Compliments to Jeff Culver who made the map and boingboing who made it available.
The red and blue state maps are deceiving. Big picture, the cities voted for Kerry and the rural areas voted for Bush. Rural areas have low population density. So even though the geographic area looks like a bush landslide when you look blue and red, the population counts almost dead even. Half the country for Bush, half for Kerry. Here's the more microscopic red/blue county breakdown compliments of USA Today:
I like that a big hunk of Southern Texas voted for Kerry, for example. When you look at the county level in shades as Robert Vanderbei did, it starts looking better again - even better than by state. There's a lot of blue on this map!
My wish for this country for the next four years is that all the great grass roots efforts that emerged this year will remain active and grow stronger and not only turn the tide in 2008 but protect the environment, curb big business excess and do damage control in the meantime. Rolling over at this point is not an option.
Even though Cheney claimed a mandate. They didn't get a mandate and if the opposition party had been quiet, they might have really had one.