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The graphics department at The New York Times won kudos from both CBS' Jeff Greenfield (no link) and NBC political director Chuck Todd for its shades-of-blue-and-shades-of-red map of all the counties in the United States, comparing support for the two Presidential candidates in 2004 with 2008. The bluer the county, the greater the swing from John Kerry to Barack Obama; the redder the county, the greater the swing from George Bush to John McCain. The map showed a nationwide sea of blue interrupted by a broad dash of red stretching through Appalachia and the Ozarks to the southern plains--from West Virginia to Oklahoma--and a rim of counties along the coastal crescent of the Gulf of Mexico from the panhandle of Florida to the bayous of Louisiana. The lesson, Todd concluded, was that Obama's victory "was not just about one voting group; it was across the board." Greenfield called such national advances "long term trouble" for the Republican Party.
Todd judged that Obama's widespread support among young voters was responsible for his victories in North Carolina and Indiana; Greenfield gave it credit for Obama's wins in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
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