[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

[Patrick Wilken]

On 10 Nov 2004, at 12:04, Brent Neal wrote:

> Its funny you bring this up. Your maps also lead to erroneous 
> conclusions, since they do not account for either 1) the population 
> density of the counties in question or 2) the margins by which Bush 
> won.  For a clearer picture, see
>
> http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/

I find the purple cartogram at the bottom of the link difficult to 
interpret. I have been looking for a graph plotting population density 
by county vs. proportion of the vote for Bush. Does anyone know where I 
can get this? I keep hearing that urban voters would be more likely to 
vote of Kerry, but it would be much simpler to see if there was an 
actual graph comparing population density with voting patterns.

This is a fairly compelling graph of Bush's popularity. Despite getting 
improved numbers in this election its seems clear that the war and 
other factors have been eroding his support since 9/11 and Bush would 
probably have lost if an election were held in six months:

http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/kabe-e.html

Of course extrapolating trends are dangerous, but we do this all the 
time for silicon chips, why not presidents??

best, patrick