wildyams

I've been staying up watching the election results, and since they don't seem like it's going to be officially decided tonight, I'm gonna write this and then go to bed; but before I go to bed I had a few observations on the election I wanted to share.

The states that Bush won in 2000 were good for 271 electoral votes. Those same states today are good for 278 electoral votes.

The states that Gore won in 2000 were good for 266 electoral votes. Those same states today are good for 261 electoral votes.

So in effect if the election today had gone exactly as the last one had gone, with the same states going for the same parties, what was a +5 electoral vote margin for Bush in 2000 would have been a +17 electoral vote margin for Bush today, even though the states voting would not have changed at all. Given how close the last election was and how close this election has been, it is of huge significance that the pro-Bush states from 2000 were given that edge this time.

If there is one thing that this election makes clear to me it is that there is a huge difference in opinion of what is important to people who live in urban areas vs. people who live in rural areas. Whether you look at how the nation voted state by state, or you look at how a couple of states voted county by county (California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois), it is overwhelmingly apparent that big cities vote Democratic, and small cities and rural areas vote Republican. Because I live in a big city, I hear a lot of people wondering how there can be so many people in this country who support Bush, and all I can think to tell them is that because we live in a big city we evidently just can't understand what it is those people see in what the Republicans offer; just as I assume that people in those areas can't fathom what people in big cities can see in the Democrats. It's really discouraging to know that our country has become so divided based on whether you live in big city or a small city, and I can't help but worry if this is a bad omen of things to come.