 namtog
join:2000-10-02
Chicago, IL | This means G. W. Bush won? Am I the only one to see the resemblance to the presidential election map? |
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| said by namtog:
Am I the only one to see the resemblance to the presidential election map?
I saw the map you're referring to in Newsweek. It's uncanny. |
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Anon | reply to namtog
ha! nice joke. i love u republicans  good luck on next election. |
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| reply to namtog
It's hardly a coincidence. The green (DSL+) CO's are mostly clustered in urban areas because that's where the companies can serve the most customers with the lowest facilities cost. In the election map, precincts that went Democratic were also heavily weighted toward urban areas, while rural areas mostly went Republican.
If you overlay a population density map on the DSL or election maps, you'll find that 1. the fraction of people who have access to DSL is higher than you might expect just from the fraction of CO's covered, and 2. Al Gore won the popular vote. |
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| Democrats have DSL? Actually, it could be debated as to who actually won the popular vote nationally. The vote was close enough that if we just used popular voting, there would have been a recount requested by Bush.
"If you overlay a population density map on the ... election maps ... Al Gore won the popular vote"
By the way, isn't that about how the networks forecasted the results? Just look at a few maps and guess?
I think a more appropriate insight would be that:
urban areas:
1. voted for gore
2. usually have dsl
rural areas:
1. voted for bush
2. usually dont have dsl
suburban:
1. split between gore and bush
2. split between having and not having dsl.
What does this mean? I don't really know....
-Biscuits |
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Anon | I think a more appropriate insight would be that:
urban areas:
1. voted for gore
2. usually have dsl
3. embrace new technologies and new ideas
4. embrace the future
rural areas:
1. voted for bush
2. usually dont have dsl
3. embrace older technologies and the suppression of new ideas
4. live in the past
suburban:
1. split between gore and bush
2. split between having and not having dsl.
3. split between not wanting to lose their civil liberties and gaining a tax break. (see, $$ IS more important than freedom!)
4. embrace their wallets
What does this mean? I don't really know....
- Dely |
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Anon | reply to biscuitsjam
said by biscuitsjam:
Actually, it could be debated as to who actually won the popular vote nationally. The vote was close enough that if we just used popular voting, there would have been a recount requested by Bush.
-Biscuits
Well, beyond the likelihood of a recount, there is also the issue of the overseas ballots. Under the electoral college, overseas absentee ballots are not usually counted in states that were a landslide for either candidate. For example, California alone had something like 700,000 overseas ballots. Gore won California by well over 700,000 votes, so it is considered a waste of time and taxpayer money to count the absentee ballots, since they won't change who gets California's electors. If we didn't use the electoral college, however, all of these ballots would have been counted.
Generally, overseas ballots favor Republicans by a roughly 2-1 margin (the military factor), so that California alone would (statistically) result in a 466-233 margin in favor of Bush, or a narrowing of 233K votes off of Gore's popular lead at the "end" of the election. Given that the entirety of that lead was about 450K votes, it is likely that Gore would have lost the popular vote as well if -- ironically, given the Florida rhetoric -- ALL the overseas votes were counted for every state.
BTW, I think Buscuits' analysis was right on without being political (i.e., most people can agree on the statements he makes of urban vs. rural), whereas the drivel responded above by dely (in an attempt to be clever) politicizes the comments in a way that follows so poorly that it makes Democrats in general look fundamentally illogical. I know that is not the case, but poor arguments always reflect negatively on the position of the arguer. Though I voted Republican in the past election, I did not by any means sacrifice my civil liberties for the blood money of a tax cut. Anyone who believes that crap needs to listen past the rhetoric of politics.
It has been said that "If you are young, and not a Democrat, you have no heart. If you are old, and not a Republican, you have no brain." While that is more of a witticism than a truth, drivel such as that shown in dely's response to Buscuits make one wonder.
-Geoff
(A -somewhat- young independent happy to embrace the future AND get my tax break, and not feeling any threat to my "civil liberties" -- neither is Al Gore taxing my broadband with any "universal connectivity charge" like he pulled with long distance phone companies, thank you very much!) |
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