Ralph Roberts - 17 December 2008 11:48 AM
Thanks to RL Clark for bringing this to my attention. I present it without comment:
Some unreported stats about the 2008 election:
Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul, MN, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2008 Presidential election:
- Number of States won by Parties: Democrats - 20; Republicans - 30
- Square miles of land won by Parties: Democrats - 580,000; Republicans 2,427,000
- Population of the counties won by Parties: Democrats - 127 million; Republicans - 143 million
- Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Parties: Democrats - 13.2; Republicans - 2.1
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens. Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in rented or government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.”
It makes it easy to see why we moved away from the landowners-only system of voting rights. Roughly 8.5 million more people voted for Obama than McCain, and those people represent the lifestyle and needs of the majority of Americans.
Olson’s lumping together of “citizens living in rented or government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare” is misleading. He might just have well have said that Democrat territory also encompassed areas with the greatest technical innovations, where the per-capita wealth was highest, where a greater density of colleges can be found, and in areas of greater ethnic and social diversity.
Turn it around like this: Republicans did well in areas where agricultural welfare (subsidies) are most pronounced and abused, where the per capita involvement in armed religious and racial separatist groups is highest, and where the greatest rates of crystal meth use can be found.
That’s probably true (I can’t be bothered to look it up), but it’s no less misleading.