Obama could become the first completely minority president

[Bacon King]

That map is so damn ridiculous I just had to look it up. It's from Colin Woodward's American Nations and the explanations are even worse than the boundaries themselves.

Yankeedom: Founded by Pilgrims, this nation is unified by a shared faith in using government to improve the "greater good," a desire to use social engineering to build a "more perfect society," and an eternal rivalry with the Deep South.

New Netherland (sic): Founded by the Dutch, this nation is unified by pluralism and global trade. They really like immigration, toleration, and a free press. At the Constitutional Convention, they forced the other nations to accept the Bill of Rights. It's modern Eastern border is where Yankees fans stop outnumbering Red Sox fans.

The Midlands: Founded by Quakers, this nation is organized around the middle class and is the origin of most stereotypical American values. The Midlands has been mostly German for over 400 years. They're afraid of big government because their Quaker ancestors were oppressed really bad in Europe, but they do think that government should help the little guy. Ontario is part of The Midlands because many members of this nation moved to Canada after the American Revolution, thus "forming the central core of English-speaking Canada."

Tidewater: Founded by the younger sons of southern English gentry who wanted to recreate the old country except by replacing their old peasants with African slaves, Tidewater is a very conservative nation where everyone respects authority and tradition, but don't really care for equality or political participation.

Greater Appalachia: Founded by "bellicose settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands," this nation disrespect authority and has a warrior ethic due to its foundation "in the British Isles... formed in a near-constant state of war and upheaval." Because of this heritage, many members of this nation have always joined the U.S. Military.

The Deep South: Founded by "Barbados slave lords" in Charleston, this nation was founded on oppression and aristocratic privilege. After successfully resisting the Yankee occupation in the aftermath of the Civil War, the Deep South is unified by States' Rights' and deregulation.

New France: Founded by "ancien regime northern French peasantry," this nation blends the culture of its founders with that of the natives they encountered here. They're very liberal and egalitarian, and were responsible for the reemergence of the First Nation.

El Norte: This nation is the blended cultures of Mexico and the United States which occurs along the border region. Just like how more in the US speak Spanish as you get closer to the border, on the Mexican side you see the people of the northern Mexican provinces being more "independent, self-sufficient, adaptable, and work-centered" than the rest of Mexico on account of the US influence. El Norte is just like Germany during the Cold War because a big wall runs down the middle of it.

The Left Coast: This nation is centered around beliefs in good government, social reform, and individual self-exploration. It loves the environment, technology, and gays. It fights a lot with the "libertarian-corporate agenda" of the Far West next-door.

The Far West: This nation was founded by distant corporations, because its environment is too rough for agriculture and easy transportation so its colonization relied on vast industrial resources like mines, railroads, and dams. This nation never left the Gilded Age and has a culture centered on dependency to its corporate overlords.

First Nation: Aboriginal tribes who have been retaining their culture and the knowledge to survive off the land for thousands of years, but have only recently begun fighting to regain their sovereignty.

The book gets even worse after that. 0/10 would not read Kindle preview again

[Earthling]

John F. Kennedy already did that in 1960.

He won 22 states (and 303 EV) against Nixon 26 (219 EV) and he received 49,7% of the vote against Nixon 49,5%.

[angus]

How can you have an Appalachia that crosses the Mississippi for fyck's sake? Also a laughable failure to even half understand Canadian politics...

They're squeezing in the Ozarks.

And about half of Texas as well, which is certainly novel.

I thought it was bizarre.  Lubbock and Huntington make strange bedfellows.  So do Boston and Flint, for that matter.  Here's the map I posted about six years ago.  It's from Commonwealth Magazine, but Boston Globe has its own version as well.  I don't think it's perfect either, and it has many of the same problems as AmericanNation's map, but it's a more reasonable starting point for this sort of thing:



Frankly, I still think Daniel Elazar's model of "Political Culture" does a better job at explaining US voting proclivities than these "ten regions" strategies.

[Wisconsin+17]

Amazingly enough, this thread improved with the 10 regions discussions.

[angus]

Amazingly enough, this thread improved with the 10 regions discussions.

given that the title contained a demonstrably false statement, you could have posted a picture of a chimpanzee playing the bongos and it would have been an improvement.  Not the the ten regions analysis is any more useful than a picture of a chimpanzee playing the bongos, but the only way to go was up, right.