Establishment of Red/Blue States

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Red was the colour of the Left long before 1917 you ignorant idiot.

[Person Man]

Yeah, seriously. I know that red was for the left since like 1848, but 2008 is not 1848 or 1948, is it? ...and watch your mouth.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yeah, seriously. I know that red was for the left since like 1848,

Long before then actually.

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So?

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, seriously. I know that red was for the left since like 1848,

Long before then actually.

1830, isn't it?

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The reason you were shouted at is because your equation of the left with the Soviet Union is offensive to some people.

[Erc]

The first use of the Red Flag I can think of is 1848 Paris (used by a lot of the revolutionaries, nearly used as the Second Republic Flag until Lamartine gave an eloquent speech in favor of the tricolor).

I think it may even have been used by the Jacobins, though, but I don't know how much of an influence that would have had on later users.

[minionofmidas]

The first use of the Red Flag I can think of is 1848 Paris (used by a lot of the revolutionaries, nearly used as the Second Republic Flag until Lamartine gave an eloquent speech in favor of the tricolor).

I think it may even have been used by the Jacobins, though, but I don't know how much of an influence that would have had on later users.

The Jacobins used the red, white & blue flag still used by France.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Red Flag was flown at the Merthyr Rising of 1831.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

Just because something has been the norm for a while doesn't mean it needs to stay in place forever.

[minionofmidas]

Just because something has been the norm for a while doesn't mean it needs to stay in place forever.

No, but why change it?

[Stranger in a strange land]

Up until 2000, the different media outlets used different colors and alternated red and blue in different election cycles. Due to our lack of a marxist or democratic socialist tradition, red traditionally has had no inherent meaning in American domestic politics (though for many years ppl would refer to "Red China" or "Red Cuba" or "Filthy Reds"). These two colors were only used because they were the colors of the flag. In the weeks after the 2000 election, however, the red-state blue-state map was onscreen for many weeks, and this gave pundits and journalists the opportunity to harp on and on about the differences between "red state america" and "blue state america."

[Person Man]

Yeah, that's 17 years.....and Leninism is different from Marxism, Stalinism and Maoism. I would say that the latter two are center-to-right and Leninism and Marxism are left.

Up until 2000, the different media outlets used different colors and alternated red and blue in different election cycles. Due to our lack of a marxist or democratic socialist tradition, red traditionally has had no inherent meaning in American domestic politics (though for many years ppl would refer to "Red China" or "Red Cuba" or "Filthy Reds"). These two colors were only used because they were the colors of the flag. In the weeks after the 2000 election, however, the red-state blue-state map was onscreen for many weeks, and this gave pundits and journalists the opportunity to harp on and on about the differences between "red state america" and "blue state america."

Agreed, the 2000 U.S. elections turned our world upside down in terms of political categories. We saw at this point rural, working-class fundamentalist whites (with notable exceptions, fundamentalist blacks, Cubans and Vietnamese)  in the South and on the Frontier against more urbanized middle-class, secular and protestant white and their underpriviledged darker-skinned minorities from the rust belt and coasts, with a view colonies at the base of the Rockies. 

The issues now are not really trade or communism, but about National Identity. Do we want to rely on our Heritage, based on Manifest Destiny and Victorianism or do we want one based on Constitutionalism and Progress. All four of these ideas are ideals that our country was founded upon. Essentially, the red-blue divide is based on disagreement of the Natural Law that America was suppossed function on.

[Fingolfin]

Its really strange because red is left and blue is right in every other country I know.

[datamaven]

According to a story deleted from Wikipedia:

The origin of modern use of red states and blue states aligning with Republicans and Democrats probably goes back to some of the backroom work in the 1996 presidential election. At the time personal computer software allowed campaigns to increasingly integrate mapping technology into their decision making. In 1996, Joshua Starr, an analyst at Penn & Schoen (Demoractic polling firm) was asked by Mark Penn to create maps (using MapInfo) for a weekly political strategy session held in the private residences the Clinton White House. The maps would show the latest polling trends in each state as well as track media buys by the Clinton re-election campaign (by DMA) and general campaign activities (such as campaign stops) by the Clinton and Dole campaigns. After a few meetings, Mr. Penn told Mr. Starr that President Clinton had asked why the Democrats were marked in blue and the Republicans were marked in red. Mr. Starr explained that he had done some research before preparing the maps, and had found that the networks had been inconsistent in their coloring through the years. Upon reflection, Mr. Starr said he decided for several reasons to use blue for Democrats and red for Republicans— – he did not want to associate Democrats with Red Communists (the 1996 White House was moving to the political center), and the loss of Blue Dog Democrats had hurt the party in Congress (blue was also the only color associated with a party, so it helped make the decision). The association of these colors and parties was then used among White House political insiders, and spread to the media and then the general public.
----

Even if this is true, the key decisionmaker was NBC.  Why did they switch from the red/blue assignment they had used for over 20 years in favor of the color scheme of their competitors?  It is not clear how or why they would know about the color of maps being used in the Clinton backrooms, especially since Clinton didn't even run again after 1996.

The red/blue division becoming part of the lexicon could only happen if all major media used the same color scheme.  So the question again becomes ... who at NBC decided to change color schemes, and why?

A more minor question is why newer networks, as they came onto the scene (CNN, Fox News, etc.) chose to use CBS's color scheme instead of NBC's?  And when ABC abandoned its previous color scheme (yellow and blue?), why did they go with CBS's instead of NBC's?

I might have to dig out my old tapes of election nights.  (1992-present, including NBC misspelling Massachusetts on its rotating wheel of state names in 2000)

[DS0816]

It's color coding. Pure and simple. Most folks don't think about what's appropriate; plenty of folks would disagree with which party should have which color. But in the grand scheme of things, they just want illustrated info that is easily identifiable. All news sources coloring states on the electoral map, to indicate what is carried by a Republican and a Democratic candidate, is quickly comprehended. So long as it's uniformly recognized. That's the bottom line for people.

[Sasquatch]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

[DS0816]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

When you think of it, is insulting to start out election night with a map of white, waiting for states to be called and colored in red or blue. It really is a message on its own.

[Sasquatch]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

When you think of it, is insulting to start out election night with a map of white, waiting for states to be called and colored in red or blue. It really is a message on its own.

Never thought about that, but you're right.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

When you think of it, is insulting to start out election night with a map of white, waiting for states to be called and colored in red or blue. It really is a message on its own.

insulting? i'm interested to know what you mean.

[politicalchick20]

I have an old tape of Election Night that my parents taped off of CNN in 1992. In it, the Republican states were red and the Democratic states were blue. Ditto in 1996 (based on clips of that night on CNN that I've seen on YouTube). I don't know if CNN has done that since signing on in 1980, but they've certainly been doing that longer than some of the networks (my parents' 92 tape has some ABC coverage too, however, and I think the color scheme was the same as CNN's).

[DS0816]

I have an old tape of Election Night that my parents taped off of CNN in 1992. In it, the Republican states were red and the Democratic states were blue. Ditto in 1996 (based on clips of that night on CNN that I've seen on YouTube). I don't know if CNN has done that since signing on in 1980, but they've certainly been doing that longer than some of the networks (my parents' 92 tape has some ABC coverage too, however, and I think the color scheme was the same as CNN's).

CBS started the color scheme (red: Republican; blue: Democratic) in 1980.

[DS0816]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

When you think of it, is insulting to start out election night with a map of white, waiting for states to be called and colored in red or blue. It really is a message on its own.

insulting? i'm interested to know what you mean.

If you think having two parties is all we should have, then this slips one's mind. What I was stating was that red, white, and blue are the colors of the U.S. flag. This electoral map color-coding of starting out with white (before states' polls close or a projection can be made for a given state) and then coloring them in red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) as each state can be projected to be carried by a candidate from the two-party monopoly (or as Ralph Nader refers to them as a duopoly) is insulting.

[Dancing with Myself]

CBS didn't use the current color scheme until 1984, so did CNN an ABC.

NBC didn't use it until 2000, and BBC didn't use it until 2004.

[HAnnA MArin County]

Why red and blue at all? I'd like one of the networks to go crazy and make republicans kiwi green and democrats yellow with black stripes.

When you think of it, is insulting to start out election night with a map of white, waiting for states to be called and colored in red or blue. It really is a message on its own.

insulting? i'm interested to know what you mean.

If you think having two parties is all we should have, then this slips one's mind. What I was stating was that red, white, and blue are the colors of the U.S. flag. This electoral map color-coding of starting out with white (before states' polls close or a projection can be made for a given state) and then coloring them in red (Republican) and blue (Democratic) as each state can be projected to be carried by a candidate from the two-party monopoly (or as Ralph Nader refers to them as a duopoly) is insulting.

Could you elaborate a little more on how it's insulting? I keep rereading your post and still have yet to come to grasp with why it's insulting for the media to color in the states red and blue. I always thought the map of the country was gray, not white, before any of the polls closed in each state.

That being said, haven't the two parties adopted these colors as their party colors anyways? The DNC and RNC and their congressional affiliates both use slogans like "Help us turn Candidate A's seat blue again" or "Turn America red again." (I haven't seen these slogans used; just used them as an example.)

In the event that we would ever have a viable third-party candidate or Independent, I'm sure they would get a specific color as well. It's easy to assume what color a state would be painted if a GREEN Party candidate were to win it. I would say perhaps the Libertarian Party's color could be purple (socially liberal/blue + fiscally conservative/red = purple), but I think purple is already used to distinguish the battleground/swing states. I'd shade a state yellow if it were to be won by an Independent, but that's just my own preference.