Red State Blue State

Do you ever get the feeling that both political parties in America are more concerned with carving us up into warring factions than actually listening to our needs? I'm of the opinion that Methodists in Kansas City and Buddhists in San Francisco have a lot more in common than we've been led to believe.

Get people fighting over, say, abortion long enough and maybe they'll forget what they agree on. We all want safe neighborhoods, good jobs, and clean water to come out of the tap, right? So when the politicians start paying more attention to earmarks than citizens, is it any wonder we catch on too late?

I decided to try out my hunch with a little experiment. Everyone knows the red vs. blue map from the 2004 election. But suppose you blend red and blue based on the percentage of votes each state recorded for the candidates. What would happen? Things get a lot more purple...