http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMri_RR7hto

::youtube::

via (tim_mcmahan > worldsofwayne)

Half of McCain voters believe Obama is or was Muslim, with 31.7% saying “He used to be Muslim and still has too many connections to Islam.”

(Source)

Not surprising that the strip of deeper red is in the white rural south, but a number of demographic areas really stood out sharply:

* The direct correlation between college degree and depth of blue and indirect correlation with depth of red, to the point where the citzens of the deepest blue counties were 2.5 times more likely to have college degrees than the deepest red.

* Similar correlations on population density, with reverse trends on income under $30,000 and Southern Baptist proportion.

* Perhaps starkest of all is an old favorite of mine, population growth: only the deepest red were, on average, stagnant from a growth perspective.

The depth of color on the chart is only change vs 2004–it was already understood that population density correlates to democrats along with wealth and education–but what this data means is, when the vast and overwhelming majority of American counties trended toward a Black man and away from Bush’s failed policies, there is a silent and increasingly irrelevant minority of poor, white, rural, Southern, Christian, undereducated voters in isolated stagnant counties who strongly resist such change.

This could mean that rather than asking “what’s the matter with Kansas?” future democrats may well be able to ask, “so what?”

(Peet’s Darjeeling for those scoring at home)

1. God is not present in Nebraska, nor expected there anytime soon.
2. God does not have a house in Nebraska.
3. God has never done anything in Nebraska.
4. No one in Nebraska is authorized to speak or act in God’s name, and all of the people who claim to do so are violating State rules of Civil Procedure.
and
5. God does not read any Nebraska newspapers.

{previously}

* I know this isn’t used corectly in this context, I just like the sound of it

¹ the mother of all caveats, I suspect.