Color TV Helped Turn Our States Red and Blue

Color TV Helped Turn Our States Red and Blue

November 15, 2:23 AM - Submitted by Media Hand (unregistered):

Political Animal has been analysing the terms "red state" and "blue
state". Historically, states that went to a Democrat candidate were
colored red and for Republicans, blue. Paul Begala responded [to a
picture of map of 2000 red and blue states] with a fiery column
pointing out that: The state where an Army private who was thought to
be gay was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, and the state
where neo-Nazi skinheads murdered two African-Americans because of
their skin color, and the state where Bob Jones University spews its
anti-Catholic bigotry: they're all red too. All hell broke loose after
that and red and blue quickly became entrenched as emblems of the "two
Americas." Final word has it that (although red is the color of lefty
parties around the world), "Since the advent of color TV, there has
been a formula to avoid charges of giving any party an advantage by
painting it a "better" color. Here is the formula: the color of the
incumbent party alternates every 4 years."

posted by npr

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