Red + Blue = Purple [rev]

Another extremely lucid exegesis of American politics by Hanna, tight-skirt-wearing exegete [below]. One point that I was pleasantly surprised by dealt with the idea of access to voters in sections of the country divided by rather narrow margins of 10-20%. Looking at this map of the recent election bears out Hanna's analysis:

- found at Pop and Politics: Real Time Election Journal

If we live in a purple nation, then both parties lose in an electoral system that is safely predictable once the spread hits 15 points. But neither party has the incentive to devote time, and primarily money (even in a campaign of $600m), to a state where their voters are in the minority, even if that "minority" is 40% of a state's voters. As we see from this year's electoral maps, Republicans have an incentive to cater to heartland voters and Democrats to coastal voters, when in fact no such rural/coastal or south/north divide really exists. But those electoral pools certainly shape the policy decisions and priorities of their respective parties. So, coincident with the prospect of access to stranded voting blocs that might be gained by abolishing the electoral system, there is also the prospect of more responsive and more open-minded political parties and a fundamental re-definition of the conventional "party base." In particular, a better reflection of political and social diversity within taken-for-granted voting blocs, such as African Americans and Hispanics.

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