The Purple Map...a cool thing

(from http://politicker.com/2012/11/the-purple-election-map/)

You've all seen the election maps with the red states and blue states and purple or swing states.  These maps create something of a distortion showing large swaths of red in the South and central West while the blue areas tend to cover the states with large metropolitan areas and along the coasts.  There are ways to avoid the problem and get a more accurate picture.  Some maps have been done going county by county which creates a much more distinct picture but on a large map of the US it tends to get a bit blurry.   Another person did it by every 100 vote areas which creates a very large over-lap or purple areas.  But by far the coolest is the one that avoids these issues by going 3-D showing red, blue, and purple divisions.  It is really fascinating the amount of area that is actually purple, but besides that it is really cool.

 The map takes a while to load so be patient. It can be found here. It is the brain child of Princeton's Robert J. Vanderbei.  You can see his 2-D version of the map here. The point is that we really aren't Red States and Blue States but surprisingly purple.  Maybe - just maybe - Republicans, Democrats and Independents are not so far apart.  We seem to be living together in a very civil manner.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I thought perhaps that it would be best to remember like the map above we are not red or blue but as a country, very purple.   Well that's my thoughts on it any ways.