A Strange, Strange Sight: Mass in Maps

Via the Boston Globe, which has had some very good local coverage in the last few days. North Shore, South Shore, Central Mass, and the Cape (excluding P-Town, obviously, which gave Coakley her highest numbers in the state), all pretty solidly red. The early rumors from people in the hall that Brown was in a dead heat with Coakley in Boston, of course, turned out to be false. For purposes of comparison, check out this town-by-town map of the 2008 election:

Comments

[Old Mexican]

The white area in the middle has been taken, earth and all, by aliens.

[Episiarch]

No, that's just the fallout from the shithole that is Worcester.

[Old Mexican]

I was trying to be nice, Epi.

[Episiarch]

So was I.

[Pro Libertate]

Remember, "Worcester" is pronounced "Spo-kain." People always screw that up.

[muchsarcasm]

It's actually the part of the world little Anthony Fremont put in the cornfield. It's *good* that he did that!

[Brandybuck]

What's with the blue west? Typically Republicans (I am unable to call Brown a "conesrvative") do better in rural areas.

[grrizzly]

It's populated by lesbians and bears. But bears don't vote.

[Anon]

That's some funny shit.

[EJ]

The small towns of Western Mass politically and culturally are similar to Vermont... they are all hippies and such. Western Mass (other than Cambridge) is the most dem part of the State.

[Kiwi Dave]

and Provincetown, which voted 84% for Coakley.

[Banjos Kick Ass!]

Is this going to cause a rift in the space-time continuum?

[DADIODADDY]

only a rift in my pants...

[LarryA]

I think this is to some extent a comment on how many groups Obama has pissed off.

The other part is the Democrats running someone like Coakley.

[I Heart Capitalisms]

Plus it looks like the American public has finally figured out that Things Cost Money and the country has Limited Money. Well done Americans. I might move to your country after all.

[Banjos Kick Ass!]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

[I Heart Capitalisms]

Newsletter Issue 1 is 'Why Things Cost Money'
Issue 2 is 'Why You Have No Money Left'
Issue 3 is 'Why Having No Money Means You Should Spend Less'
It's practically the equivalent of an econ Doctorate.

[Graphite]

Except that an econ doctor would probably answer:

1. It's a market failure
2. It doesn't matter, we can print more
3. We should always spend more, no matter what

Seriously, look up the theory of Chartalism. There are actually people out there who believe that the government's spending power is not limited in any meaningful sense.

[John C. Randolph]

>It's practically the equivalent of an econ Doctorate.

No, it's a course in practical finance. An econ doctorate these days is all about how to rationalize power-grabbing with mathematical models that bear no relation at all to reality.

-jcr

[Episiarch]

I'm pretty impressed that the whole Cape went with Brown (excluding, as Michael pointed out, P-Town). Not the Vineyard, though, natch.

[Yeah I went there]

Well, P-Town goes Brown in it's own, special way.

[Peter K.]

The interpretation of the map is wrong. The blue at the tip is more than just Provincetown; it includes Truro, Wellfleet and Eastham.

http://www.capecodonline.com/a.....=SPECIAL22

I also doubt the blue in western Massachusetts.

[DADIODADDY]

@ this time of year there's only about 200 people who live the other side of the canal...wait til summer

[Rhywun]

What's with the blue west?

That part of Mass. defies the usual suburban/rural=R calculus, probably in no small part because of the presence of numerous liberal arts colleges and prep schools.

[Christopher_T.]

Thank you for making sense of that anomaly. But do the young mushheads really outnumber the townies?

(Just curious)

[Ted S.]

I live in the Catskills of New York, and my sister lives near Worcester. The quickest way between the two places is the MassPike through the Berkshires.

There's nothing there.

[Libertymike]

Except communist strongholds like Amherst, Northhapmton and the like. Never mind the schools.

[Rhywun]

excluding, as Michael pointed out, P-Town

I love how it gets more gay blue as one approaches P-Town.

[Episiarch]

Are you saying it gets more blue and veiny as one approaches the tip? Because that's what I'm hearing.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

:::tips hat at Rhywun and Episiarch::: That's some funny shit, and I've never even been to Massachusetts.

[Rhywun]

I've never been to P-Town myself but it's quite famous in, uh, "my community".

[BlueBook]

So, no Brown on the tip?

[Fist of Etiquette]

I can't zoom in. Those sliders do nothing!

[Rhywun]

Don't you mean "ze sliders"?

[Fist of Etiquette]

You got the reference without it!

[Rhywun]

Heh, I should have left it alone 🙂

[?]

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[Anon]

Wicked pissah!

[d]

Has there really been that much of a sea change in MA politics, or is there just less ACORN-orchestrated voter fraud now? (Obviously some of the politics have shifted...but *that* much? C'mon!)

[ACORN representative]

We're doing our best, you ungrateful....

[The Crackshot Crackpot]

Weird. That's what the Dems get for trying to shove "health care reform" down the American public's throat...assholes.

[Fist of Etiquette]

That ellipsis is leaving out an entire digestive tract.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

Nice.

[wingnutx]

Well played.

[Groovus Maximus]

Dem/Proggies have no concern for the entire alimentary canal, just the areas with the most exposed and expedient access.

[Colin]

Brown did surprisingly well in Lynn, which is very urban. And poor.

[EJ]

And he won Lowell! as in Lowell Mills. Whats interesting si that he won or did very well in blue collar areas. He even almost won Worcester. Where he didnt make any ground were the limosine liberal towns like Concord, Cambridge and the Westeran Mass college towns like Amherst and North Hampton. I was doing a comparison twon by town as data came in comparing his results to Romneys to get a gauge. And he was polling behind Romnet by 3 points in them. So I thought he would squeek by by 2 points (Romney won by 5). This changes though because Brown did really well in the blue color areas mentioned above. So what this says is, that the "little guy" that the dems are supposedly helping with this healthcare bill have abandoned the dems, even in MA. The only demographic that stayed in line where the wealthy, highly educated types who fit nicely into the GOP elitst characture. Expect on reviewing these results, the GOP running on anti-elitists rhetoric more now.

[Butts Wagner]

I dunno about this. Coakley still won Gloucester, Brockton, New Bedford, Fall River, Springfield, Worcester. I wouldn't get too excited about the blue collar areas falling to the Republicans just yet.

[Rhywun]

I dunno about some of those, but Worcester and Springfield are more no-collar than blue-collar. If you don't have a job, the Dems seem more appealing. If you do, you see the bite they take out of your paycheck.

[EJ]

"Lynn, Lynn the city of sin. You never come out the way you went in"

(I'm a Masshole by Birth)

[George Bush]

Ha ha ha!

[pgt]

Among the towns carried by Coakley:
Lexington and Concord - are no Embattled Farmers left there?
also
Salem - is witch hunting still popular there after all these centuries?

[Old Mexican]

Lexington and Concord - are no Embattled Farmers left there?

Uh, somebody stole the flints out of their flintlocks... So they had to acquiesce.

[John C. Randolph]

Who was the genius that decided to assign the traditional color of totalitarian communism to the republicans?

-jcr

[Coarsetaf]

I love red. The color not the politics of it

[no one]

Believe it or not, Democrats were colored red up until 2000. Then, two networks swapped the colors, giving red to the Republicans. Come 2004 elections, all networks went Red Republicans, Blue Democrats.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

The Republicans have always been Red. It has always been this way.

Now you will come with us.

[DJF]

Its like when the Soviet Union was falling apart and the communists were suddenly identified by the MSM as conservatives. Overnight every reporter was calling the communists conservative.

[leviramsey]

Well, conservative is a relative thing. If you favor preservation of the status quo or a return to the ways of the past (whatever the status quo or past may be), you're conservative by definition. Thus, for instance, some European conservatives favor essentially a return to absolute monarchy.

Progressive is a similar term, really, denoting the opposite: a desire for change.

Conservative does not always equal right-wing and progressive does not always equal left wing.

[SteveMajors]

It was the late Tim Russert, senior MSM propagandist, who reversed the traditional color scheme. He knew that people would instinctively respond en masse to stimuli in a certain way. Calling someone a "Red" still carries some weight. When you deal with large numbers of voters, it's sound livestock management. Following the Pavlovian model, the sheeple responded on command.

[R C Dean]

Traditionally, in war games the "aggressor"/bad guy is red, and the good guys are blue.

Purely a coinkydink, I'm sure.

[John C. Randolph]

Calling someone a "Red" still carries some weight.

Sadly, a lot of Republicans actually fit that description today.

-jcr

[Kiwi Dave]

More American exceptionalism. In practically every other country, the main conservative party is blue and the social-democrat party is red. I think the red-blue thing is useful to the Democrats, because it counters the association of them with socialism (whereas in most other countries, the main left-wing party has at least a historical association with socialism).

[IceTrey]

MA has never elected a women to the Senate or to be Governor.

[Old Mexican]

They must know something about MA women we don't know . . .

[Johnny Longtorso]

It used to be incumbant blue, challenger red until 2000 when the colors stuck.

I believe.

[Rhywun]

The Wikipedia sez there was no standard scheme before 2000, believe it or not.

[Xmas]

Compare and contrast that map to towns in the Massachusetts 4th congressional district (AKA Barney Frank's district)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Massachusetts's_4th_congressional_district.gif

Explains his sudden gear shift on health care reform...

[Rhywun]

Maybe, except there are probably more voters in super-lefty Brookline and Newton alone, than in the rest of the district combined. But I love these maps. I've always been fascinated by gerrymandering, even if it seems counterproductive like in MA-4. Hey, guess which state gerrymandering started in...?

[Michael]

Why doesn't it show the islands? They're part of the state.

Coakley is from northwestern Mass., which is not rural in the sense of farmland. It's mostly woods.

That white spot is a very small town, in which the vote was tied. Because it's so small, this is mathematically not all that unlikely.

[Michael]

And why does the map of the 2008 presidential election have that blurb on Haverhill covering over most of the Northeastern Mass. There are a lot of people living there.

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