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Saturday, November 06, 2004
Blue State Secession?
Bitter Kerry supporters have suggested more or less seriously that the Blue States should secede from the United States. Slate even published a primer on whether the Blue States could legally secede. Such talk of secession has also followed the 2000 Presidential elections, the 2002 Congressional elections and even the Iraq War.
But for all the hype about "a nation divided" and the Blue/Red divide, there are no neat territorial boundaries dividing Red from Blue since there are many Blue pockets to be found in Red States and vice versa as Kate pointed out by posting the county-by-county results from the 2004 elections. If you want to see a nation genuinely divided - with a secession soon to follow - see the map of the 1860 Presidential elections (especially if the then-lightly populated Pacific Coast is factored out) These divisions can be summarized by noting that
Lincoln’s victory was wholly sectional. The Republican had carried every county in New England, 109 of 147 counties in the Mid-Atlantic states, and 252 of 392 counties in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. He received no votes in nine states in the Deep South, and won only 2 of 996 counties in the entire South.
The United States are far from being that divided today.
Posted by Laurent Moss on November 6, 2004 in Current Affairs | Permalink
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Comments
Blue State Secession was on Geraldine Ferraro's mind(?) Friday nite on Fox...along with something like "there'd be nothing" then some rambling on about intellect.....
She needs to look at the "real" map...actually I think we all should..
America is mostly PURPLE
http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2004/
Posted by: Sue McKee | 2004-11-07 12:39:08 PM
OTOH Bush employing 4000 active duty troops (Not National Guard) to protect his innaugeration has only happened once before. Lincoln's 1st innaugeration. (People were kinda worried that a civil war might break out). That's why later 1878 Posse Comitatus was enacted. But I guess that's just me in Pre Sept 11th mentality.
Posted by: MWW | 2004-11-07 5:37:41 PM
What's ironic is that if the Blue and Red states swapped, and Republicans mused about breaking off the Northeast, Midwest and Pacific states, the Left would go nuts over the obvious attempt to steal America's richest regions for themselves.
http://bluerev.blogspot.com/2004/11/abandoning-principles.html
Posted by: Kelvin | 2004-11-08 10:28:34 PM
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