The Color Change: Hiding the "Red" factor

We often wonder why the two major political parties were given the colors they were. Red- Republican
Blue-Democrat

It wasn't always this way.

RED STATE BLUES
Did I Miss That Memo?
May 27, 2004
CLARK BENSEN1
POLIDATA ® Political Data Analysis
Over the past quarter of a century I have generated hundreds, nay thousands, of colorcoded (thematic) maps illustrating political behavior for the nation. These maps have used election results as the source information and show the geographic distribution of voter preferences at various levels of political geography, state, county, town/city, precinct and congressional or legislative districts2. In every one of these maps that indicate a political dichotomy of Republican vs. Democrat, the traditional color-coding scheme has been used: BLUE FOR REPUBLICAN, RED FOR DEMOCRAT. When I first came to Washington following the 1980 elections to join the staff of the Republican National Committee, it was already a given that color-coded maps were generated in this fashion. In fact, having watched network news election night coverage over the years, this seemed to be a generally-accepted standard. As the elections ticked away, however, the networks started to change and one-by-one the new election night standard generally became just the reverse.
As we know, the color red is more “eye-catching” and perhaps it made graphic sense for the networks to color-in the vast Republican expanse of the country in red to create a more dramatic background map. However, the problem has now transformed itself into a shorthand notation whereby the color is not used solely to visually differentiate states or counties. It is on the verge of becoming a part of the political lexicon as commentators refer to the “red states” and the “blue states”. This is, to me, as a longstanding political operative, not only confusing
but a disturbing trend of how the political paradigm has shifted. There are two general reasons why blue for Republican and Red for Democrat make the most sense: connotation and practice. First, there has been a generally understood meaning to
the two colors inasmuch as they relate to politics. That is, the cooler color blue more closely represented the rational thinker and cold-hearted and the hotter red more closely represented the passionate and hot-blooded. This would translate into blue for Republicans and red for Democrats. Put another way, red was also the color most associated with socialism and the party of the Democrats was clearly the more socialistic of the two major parties. The second reason why blue for Republicans makes sense is that traditional political mapmakers have used blue for the modern-day Republicans, and the Federalists before that, throughout the 20th century3. Perhaps this was a holdover from the days of the Civil War when
the predominantly Republican North was “Blue”. While not a unanimous practice4, there is significant printed evidence of tradition in favor of the blue for Republican and red for Democrat color scheme. Nevertheless, the networks appear to be making this change full-bore during 2004. Even some conservative commentators5 have begun to use the “red state/blue state” break as a shorthand to “Republican state/Democrat state” as part of their terminology. Moreover, some younger political observers have been exposed only to the red for Republican scheme6. Of course, while this just shrieks of inside-the-beltway elitism, it also tends to confuse the debate for many average Americans, especially those over 30. The sole premise for this short-hand is the color-coding of the maps, most of which have not been seen since the 2000 election night/recount coverage. The political parties have invested untold millions in brand recognition for their party labels. Now the media are poised to turn this around for the sake of inside Washington jargon.