Quantitative data can be so much fun and illuminating!

This is fascinating.

I got the link above from a comment related to this EotAW post. The interactive graph of recent unemployment numbers that Ari points us to is fun in-and-of itself, for sure, but jazzbumpa provided the link to presidential election results (from exit polling) by demographic from 1972 to 2008. The visual narratives suggested by an analysis of these results spurred the following thoughts:

** To follow jazzbumpa, "If only white people voted, McCain would be in the white house." Yes, this is scary.

** Except for the Regan elections of 1980 and 1984, the majority of Liberals and moderates vote for the Democratic presidential candidate, suggesting that the country tends to be more "liberal" than the religious right and Fox News care to admit.

** Since the 1988 election, Democratic presidential candidates have earned the majority of votes in the Northeast and West, and the Midwest has gone back-&-forth, but the South has gone almost exclusively Republican.

** The most religious among us tend to vote Republican.

** Those who make more money tend to vote Republican. You're thinking to yourself right now, "duh!!!" which is fine, but after this initial reaction, think about it again. What such information is telling us is that the Republican party tends to be the party of the rich. To those reading this post who are among the working class and members of unions, this should be a red-flag to you that the Republican you may be thinking about voting for because she or he is "pro-gun" may, in fact, be using this issue to sell you out to the very class of people who undermine unions and ship your jobs overseas.

Some things to think about.

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