on red, blue and purple

it freaks me out to look at the US map when it's just red states and blue states. makes me feel outnumbered, small, and scared. so i really liked seeing this purple map--showing the relative leanings of a state, putting into perspective just how red or how blue any particular state is. and it confirms what we know: that most of america is really pretty much in the middle.

and, it warmed my heart to read this posting on dailykos.com, about shifting partisanship in various states. take a look:

We may have lost the election, but the country is getting bluer.
Chris Bowers developed the Partisan Index to gauge the relative partisan standing of any given state. So courtesy of Bowers, here are the states moving from pro-RNC Partisan Index to pro-DNC Partisan Index:
2004 2000
IA DNC +2.1 RNC +0.2
NV DNC +0.4 RNC +4.1
NH DNC +4.2 RNC +1.8
NM DNC +1.3 RNC +0.5
OH DNC +0.5 RNC +4.0
OR DNC +8.0 RNC +0.3
WI DNC +3.4 RNC +0.3

Here are other states in which we made significant gains:
2004 2000
CO RNC +3.2 RNC +8.9
ME DNC +11.0 DNC +4.6
MI DNC +6.4 DNC +4.6
MN DNC +6.4 DNC +1.9
PA DNC +5.2 DNC +3.7
VA RNC +5.6 RNC +8.5
VT DNC +23.6 DNC +9.4
WA DNC +10.4 DNC +5.1