[gregwest]

I never understood the use of the color red for the conservative states. We typically associate red with communism, as in "Red Chinese" or the 60's slogan better "red than dead." The Dems are the socialists in the US, so I wonder if the media intentionally tried to remove the "red" stigma associated with the libs in their presentation of the 2000 election results.

[Terabitten]

I never understood the use of the color red for the conservative states. We typically associate red with communism, as in "Red Chinese" or the 60's slogan better "red than dead." The Dems are the socialists in the US, so I wonder if the media intentionally tried to remove the "red" stigma associated with the libs in their presentation of the 2000 election results.

There's a gazillion threads on it here on FR. The gist of it is that the incumbent party was usually blue, so in 2000, President Bush got tagged with red. In all the media debate during the 2000 Florida silliness, the red vs. blue got entrenched.

I distinctly remember looking at Reagan's landslide in 1984 where the whole country was blue except for Minnesota and D.C.

[lizma]

if the media intentionally tried to remove the "red" stigma

2000 it was in line with tradition.

2004 is was part of the MSM "words mean nothing, let's just go for an emotional grasping at straws" campaign.