The Truth Behind “Red” State and “Blue”

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By Kevin Price, Publisher and Editor in Chief,  USDR.

From Kevin Price’s column in Huffington Post:

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The late Tim Russert, the much beloved political and news broadcaster, was often described as a genius for developing the simple idea of “Red state” versus “Blue state” in summing up the results of elections in general and presidential elections in particular. I think he had the best of intentions — develop a simple way to explain election results through a clearly defined color scheme. However, the result has been that fewer American than ever understand why certain geographic areas vote in one way while you will find completely different results elsewhere. A closer examination shows that, generally speaking, it is not merely “red state versus blue state” as much as rural values (Red states) versus urban (Blue states).

With rare exception, Blue States have a huge portion of its population represented by urban areas. These urban areas swing final election results in a significant manner. They vote “Blue” or Democrat. In a similar manner, with rare exception states that largely vote “Red” have very few large population areas and there is a larger dispersion of population through out a state. Therefore, what we learn, is that the tendency for a state to vote “Blue” means they vote in the interest of urban areas, which tend to be liberal or inclined towards bigger government. Meanwhile, “Red” means they vote in the interest of rural areas which tend to be more inclined towards small government.

This is not a new phenomenon. I believe our Constitution, right from the beginning, was designed and inclined towards rural rather than urban values. According to the American Economic Foundation, in its book How We Live, at the time of the founding of the Republic roughly 80 percent of the population were…(read more)

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