I grew up a baseball fan in an American League city. The American League has traditionally been associated with the color blue and, as a result, I have fond, nostalgic feelings toward the color. So I'm happy to identify myself with the "blue" party.
As we all know, the "red-blue" divide gained linguistic currency during and after the 2000 election. Before then, people really didn't talk too much about the "colors" of parties. (Except in another, very different sense.) And, as discussed below, it is a pure accident that the Democrats have ended up blue -- and there is an interesting issue about color assignments in the 2008 election.
I was interested to learn that is a mere accident of history that the Democrats have been assigned the "blue" half of the red-blue divide. As
this Wikipedia entry explains, "[t]he color assignments alternated every four years between the incumbent party and the challenger." Red and blue were chosen as the alternating colors because (i) they are the colors of the U.S. flag, and (ii) they are sufficiently distinct in contrast that those with color blindness or monochrome TV sets can distinguish them.
Going back a few election cycles and applying this rule, the Democrats have been:
- Blue (2004)
- Blue (2000)
- Red (1996)
- Red (1992)
- Blue (1988)
- Red (1984)
- Red (1980)
- Red (1976)
Thus, in the past thirty years, the Democrats have been red
five times and blue only
three.
Under this convention, the Dems are due to be red in 2008. Has the blue/red divide taken sufficient hold in this country to abandon the convention and make permanent color assignments?