MY FAVORITE ELECTORAL MAP: I'm sure you've seen the United States of Canada/Jesusland one that gave us Kerry voters much-needed yucks. And the USA Today red-and-blue county map. And the one comparing the current election to the one in 1896. This one, though, is my favorite thus far; it's certainly the most-eye-catching:



Via Crooked Timber. Who got it from here. It's three guys from the University of Michigan and once they plot out their data and everything they reach this conclusion:

It appears that there are, as the pundits have been telling us, "two Americas," but they are not the ones people usually talk about. They are "divided America," where people split roughly evenly between Republican and Democrat, and "decided America," where everyone is a Democrat. The Democrats of "decided America" number about 5.9 million, or 11% of all Democratic voters. These people are unlikely ever even to encounter a Republican voter in their home town.

If one were to summarize simply, it appears that the election's winner won by a slim majority of people in counties that -- as counties -- were rather ambivalent about their decision. He was opposed by a nearly (but not quite) equal number of people a considerable fraction of whom live in counties that were very certain of their support for his opponent.

So there you have it: statistical evidence of the liberal coccoon. Six million people who've never even seen a Republican. If I was a conservablogger I'd be all over this. But I'm not--so down to sleep I go.

By the way--Blogger stinks with fonts. And USC lost and Utah won. The BCS dies this year, I swear it.

UPDATE: USC didn't actually lose--the hey? I swear ESPN said that. The BCS dies anyway.