States deserve praise when they add to the prosperity, security, and advancement of this nation by sending the right candidate to the White House, disapproval when they send the wrong ones, and utter contempt when they support outright villains by large margins. As long as we bother to have an electoral college where the majority choices of a state's residents affect the fortunes of the nation as a whole, it makes sense to make moral judgments about a state. So, just for the fun of it, I've cobbled together some cumulative "karma maps" of past presidential elections, each of which feeds into the next to show where states stand morally due to their record of presidential choices. Repeat: This is just for fun.
First, I will admit that it is utterly impossible to be objective on such a measure - "karma" cannot really be quantified, so I'm just basically setting up totally arbitrary scales here based on my moral judgments of historical candidates. However, I will explain my reasoning at each step of the way, so I'm at least trying to be transparent.
Now, because it was the first presidential election since 1860 where Americans were confronted with a starkly moral choice, I'll start the clock in 1932 in the race between incumbent Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Given that starkness, and the fact that what followed laid the foundations for modern America across a virtual clean slate, we'll say that FDR represents +10 karmic points and Hoover -5, since Hoover was not nearly as bad relative to his environment as FDR was good, IMHO. Now, remember, with each new karma map, it represents the cumulative total of points beginning with this one:
The 1936 election was between the incumbent Roosevelt and a centrist Republican challenger, Alf Landon, who embraced most of the initiatives of the New Deal, so it was no longer so much a stark moral choice so much as a referendum on Roosevelt's personal leadership qualities. Since the success of the FDR administration was obvious, states get less credit for going along with it (+5); and since Landon was largely supportive of it, and objected mainly to labor regulation rather than the direct support and employment programs of the New Deal, there is less of a penalty for voting for him (-2). Landon voters may have been motivated by immoral politics to chip away at the New Deal, but as a candidate he was pretty liberal.
In the 1940 election, there were several real moral issues that legitimately compromised FDR's support in the previous elections: Among them was the fact that people were concerned about the precedent of having a three-term President, since it had been a tradition since George Washington to keep presidencies to two terms. On balance and in context, Roosevelt's reasons for seeking a third term were legitimate and justified - namely the imminence of a World War the West had gone out of its way to try to avoid - but people could be forgiven for seeing it as potentially troublesome.
The looming prospect of war in Europe was itself another reason for reconsideration: Americans were not entirely clear at this point that the moral choice was far starker than in WW1 - many people still thought it was just another matter of internal European politics rather than the war of an Evil ideology on all mankind, and there were legitimate fears about empowering the Soviet Union if the US interfered in the continent against Germany. Also, the benefits of the New Deal had started to slip as programs were struck down in the courts or scaled back by Congress, creating a sense of disappointment among some constituencies who were not aware of the details.
FDR's opponent, Wendell Willkie, was a strong supporter of civil rights for black Americans long before it was a major movement, and focused his criticisms on qualitative matters of efficiency and integrity in the administration of New Deal programs rather than their fundamental desirability. He was definitely more oriented toward business and the interests of the wealthy than FDR, but it isn't clear that America would have suffered terribly had he been President. However, the transition as the nation headed toward war would have introduced uncertainty, especially as he had waffled on whether and to what extent the US would support Britain. FDR was also guilty of such waffling at the time, so the morals aren't that clear. I'll say that FDR states in 1940 get +2 karma points and Willkie states get -1.
The 1944 election occurred near the end of a war the administration had actively tried to avoid, that had evolved into a clear moral dichotomy between Generally Good and Pure Evil, and that the Allies were on the verge of winning in Europe. Moreover, the Roosevelt administration had proven adept at uniting and reassuring the country - and, indeed, the entire alliance - during the darkest days of the war, and was effective at mobilizing the nation's economy.
The Republican challenger, Thomas Dewey, although a principled person who sincerely raged at the pervasive corruption and mob influence in the local and state Democratic machines at the time, was also something of a Red Baiter whose campaign routinely flung out reckless and preposterous innuendos of Communist leanings against the administration. He was the first Republican nominee since 1932 to actively criticize much of the core basis of the New Deal, and had moreover been a vociferous isolationist in 1940 - basically he hadn't been right about anything. Since it was so obvious, voting for FDR is thus only +1 karma point, while voting for Dewey is a penalty of -4 since he at times engaged in Red Baiting, had never been right about anything other than prosecuting mobsters, and was against the New Deal.
With the 1948 election, it was actually a race where the electoral votes were spread between three candidates: The incumbent Harry Truman, the main challenger Thomas Dewey once again, and Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. Truman had overseen the successful end of WW2; the rousingly successful rebuilding and democratization of Western Europe and Japan under the Marshall and MacArthur plans, respectively; had integrated the Armed Forces; and had put the United States in a very strong position geopolitically relative to the Soviet bloc. He had also largely supported labor unions, although on occasion he had used the power of the Presidency to end strikes that were deemed nationally damaging. However, the nation was rocked by post-war economic problems due to a poorly-planned transition to peacetime.
Dewey ran a largely hollow campaign of meaningless platitudes since he was told by the entire journalism establishment that he was destined for victory. At this point he no longer went after New Deal programs, but tried to hide the extreme reactionary character of his Party by convincing them to pass a platform supporting Social Security and other programs. He also largely avoided Red Baiting this time around, and tried to sound like a statesman. He was more liberal than his Party at this point, but still ran a highly insulting and empty campaign to waltz into the Presidency on sheer expectation. On the plus side, he acknowledged the success of Truman's foreign policies and largely pledged to continue them. Dewey also took a principled stand against hardliners in his own party who wanted to outlaw the Communist Party, but nonetheless championed "exposing" Communists in various sectors of society.
Strom Thurmond, of course, ran on pretty much a single issue - maintaining segregation and promoting white supremacy. The purpose of his candidacy was not to win, since that was virtually impossible outside the South, but rather to demonstrate the Southern contingent's power within the Democratic Party and force it to abandon or water down its recent moves toward supporting civil rights. Given the confusion, disarray, the split politics within the Democratic Party, Dewey's newfound slipperiness, and legitimate concerns over the economy, I think voting for Truman was both highly moral and yet nowhere near obvious, so it deserves +5. Dewey, although the same man from earlier, ran a more liberal and statesmanlike campaign, so his penalty is -2. Thurmond, however, was a campaign based on support for pure evil in order to keep the federal government from ending a system of violent oppression with no possible moral excuses. States who went for him get -10.
The 1952 election was between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, since Truman chose not to run again. Although the GOP's refrains were conservative - e.g., accusing Democrats of Communist sympathies - Eisenhower personally tended to stay above it, and ran on his credentials as the war hero who had led the Allies to victory as Supreme Allied Commander while softening his image for civilian office with the famous "I Like Ike" slogan. Putting Richard Nixon a heartbeat away from the Oval Office was a dangerous move, but I don't know if Ike really understood what a scumbag Nixon was even though he was uneasy with his running mate's politics.
Stevenson ran a detailed and cerebral campaign, but also spoke eloquently in support of building further on New Deal programs and de-escalating geopolitical tensions. However, he counseled moderation on social issues such as civil rights and labor organizing. Because of his desire to be intellectually thorough and honest, he never cultivated the kind of consistent base that could build enthusiasm around his campaign, and that shortcoming would likely have followed him to the White House even if he had faced a much weaker opponent and managed to win. So I can't say with any certainty his administration would have been better than Ike's on any given level.
Since that isn't clear to me, I see no clear net moral changes due to this election - Ike was an American first, second, and third, and a Republican something like tenth. He vowed to end the Korean War, and turned out to be a good President, although his party did plenty of damage that he didn't start opposing until McCarthy got reckless and went after his administration. So, no penalty for Ike, no bonus for Stevenson. This was the kind of presidential election this country is supposed to have, where BOTH candidates would be acceptable. We'll skip the map for 1952.
In the 1956 rematch election, Stevenson appeared to have learned somewhat from his shortcomings in the earlier race, campaigning strongly and pointedly in favor of major increases in social programs as well as turning the United States to an all-volunteer military, pursuing peaceful engagement with the Soviet Union, and other staunchly liberal positions. However, Ike was undoubtedly a successful President who had effectively ended the Korean War by securing a truce with the North, smashed Joe McCarthy, spearheaded the construction of the Interstate Highway system, and numerous other visionary actions. He would go on after his election victory to establish NASA, and use federal troops to enforce desegregation. Two worthy candidates, two worthy visions. Once again, I see no basis for any moral change for supporting either candidate, so we'll skip the 1956 map as well.
That is not the case with the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Although Kennedy's campaign was moderate by the standards of the era, his minority status as a Catholic galvanized interest from people who wanted American politics to be more inclusive, and his subsequent, highly progressive actions as President lend great credit to those who voted for him: Namely committing the nation to the Apollo program, using the full power of the federal government to boldly impose desegregation on an increasingly angry and militant white South, pursuing Civil Rights legislation (although it wasn't passed under his administration), saving the world from nuclear armageddon in the Cuban Missile Crisis with a timely backroom compromise (i.e., removing NATO missiles from Turkey), etc. etc.
Kennedy also did a great service to secularism by answering anti-Catholic sentiment by affirming separation of church and state, which was an artful (or at least serendipitous) bit of political judo, since most of the anti-Catholic views were from people who wanted religion to play a big role in politics, as long as it was their religion. He further exercised political influence to get MLK released from jail, and therefore made his association with the Civil Rights movement clear to those involved without actually campaigning on it so as not to alienate the South.
Richard Nixon, however, was already an infamous Red Baiting SOB with a reputation for ruthlessness and cruelty. He was a mendacious, sociopathic thug who tried to parlay his working-class background into some kind of image as an honest but tough Average Joe. Had he won, war in Cuba and possibly escalation to a full-blown nuclear holocaust seems like a major possibility, but I don't greatly fault anyone for not recognizing that given how the campaigns were run. So not only was it a strong moral dichotomy, but one that wasn't at all obvious at the time given the relatively moderate campaigns both candidates ran. Kennedy voters deserve great credit (+7) for their far-sightedness and depth of perception, and Nixon voters deserve a significant penalty (-3), although not extremely high since he campaigned mostly by hiding behind the policies of the popular Eisenhower administration. Dixiecrat Harry F. Byrd won a couple of states on opposing desegregation, so that's -10 as with Thurmond in 1948. Alabama had split its electors 6-5 between Byrd and Kennedy, favoring Byrd, so I will only penalize them -8.
The 1964 election was a far starker choice between a liberal Democrat (LBJ) who was an unmitigated champion of Civil Rights and social programs, and an ultra-conservative radical (Barry Goldwater) who essentially wanted to do away with the New Deal, leave segregation up to the states, and take the Cold War hot. However, Johnson was not the most moral of characters, was a profoundly talented politician running against someone with limited appeal outside right-wing circles, ultimately ended up orchestrating the Vietnam War, and the choice in his favor in 1964 was obvious given the failings of his opponent, so the reward for picking him (+2) is lower than the penalty for picking Goldwater (-10). BTW, -10 is the maximum penalty, just as +10 is the maximum reward: On the plus side, it indicates a momentous and utterly stark decision in favor of good; on the negative side, a candidate who is utterly irredeemable and there's no excuse to vote for them.
The 1968 election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humprey was, if I understand correctly from the literature - I wasn't around at the time - a very stark choice between a right-wing Republican bully who created the infamous 'Southern Strategy' that played on Southern white rage over desegregation to split the Democratic Party, and relied on outright demonization of the social changes taking place in American to convince people that he was the proper choice. Humphrey was as liberal as they come and a good leader with major potential as a President, but was hamstrung by having to fall in line with LBJ's Vietnam policies.
There was simply no excuse for voting Nixon in this election, so Nixon votes get -10, while Humphrey votes get +7 for seeing through the confusion to the real choice before them. However, there was also Dixiecrat George Wallace to contend with, and he also gets -10, both on his own "merits" and the fact that he took electoral votes away from Humphrey to give Nixon the win. This is the first election with actual "Red" states, and appropriately enough, they're Mississippi and Alabama - though, surprisingly, also Vermont:
It's unclear whether the 1972 election was more, less, or equally stark compared to the 1968 election. George McGovern was more progressive than Hubert Humphrey, but Richard Nixon had ended the draft, created the Environmental Protection Agency, opened up dialog with Communist China, and various other measures he deemed politically convenient contrary to conservative ideology. Nonetheless, Nixon was a thug, a crook, and a war criminal, and everyone who bothered to pay attention apparently knew that by 1972. McGovern was a superb individual and articulated a great vision for America, but he didn't appear to understand how to speak to people who weren't already on board with it, which would have compromised his effectiveness as a President. Due to these factors, I reduce Nixon from a penalty of -10 to -5, and give McGovern a +5.
The 1976 election was between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, and as far as I know - I still wasn't born yet - it was morally not that divergent, although still different enough to make a distinction. Ford had given Richard Nixon a complete and unconditional pardon, and had also bungled a number of economic matters. Carter, although progressive, was not especially good at communicating with the people or politicking, so I'll make it +2 Carter, -2 Ford. They were a good match, IMHO, and that's the next best thing to the kind of universally beneficial campaign noted in 1952 and 1956.
By 1980, Jimmy Carter had done a poor job as President. That isn't to say he didn't have major accomplishments - peace between Israel and Egypt is nothing to sneeze at - but he was very poor at understanding the mood of the nation and knowing how to respond to it. When the people wanted reassurance and concrete answers, he offered countrified, folksy wisdom that addressed none of their practical concerns. I wasn't there personally, but watching his speeches and addresses to the nation on Youtube, it's actually very embarrassing at times. I understand how the country could have fallen into the hands of a whacko like Ronald Reagan.
As such, I will only penalize Reagan voter states -7 despite the devastating consequences of their choices. Still, Carter failed to offer a compelling vision to compete with Reagan's fantasy of a free market paradise, so paradoxically we can reward states that saw through Reagan's bullshit with +5. This is justified because Democrats had a chance to replace Carter with Ted Kennedy, but chose to stay with Carter.
Once people got to know what Ronald Reagan was about, there was no longer any excuse for voting for him. Although he was good at projecting the image of Presidency, he never came anywhere near to actually doing the job, and had introduced a Rogue's Gallery of criminals and psychopathic right-wing fanatics into the administration. Thus we increase the karmic penalty for supporting him to -10. However, the Mondale campaign was poorly-managed on many fronts, and gave no real evidence that they were seriously trying to win rather than just making self-satisfying points, so supporting Mondale is at best +1. When you have a low reward like that, it means liberals are not being serious, and not really trying - for instance, by not nominating someone who would create a viable campaign. Given the heinousness and toxicity of the Reagan administration, that's inexcusable.
The 1988 election between George HW Bush and Michael Dukakis was more of a legacy referendum than anything, with Bush running on Reagan's so-called "accomplishments" and deriding the "liberal" Dukakis as if it were a bad thing. Since Dukakis utterly failed to understand, let alone leverage the profound corruption in the Reagan administration to his benefit; and since HW Bush was more or less a caretaker; Dukakis gets +2 and HW Bush gets -5.
In the 1992 election between George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, we can be more lenient on Bush since he governed a little to the left of Reagan, passing some civil rights legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and broke his 1988 campaign promises by raising taxes. He was also an effective diplomat and artfully navigated the line between defense and aggression in the Gulf War, so he deserves some credit for that. However, he did wage a series of totally unnecessary and obscure military campaigns that cost thousands of innocent lives with little media attention, so the penalty must remain significant at -3. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, managed to energize the public and resurrect hope among constituencies who had been totally ignored over the past dozen years, so that's +5.
The 1996 election between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole had the former promoting his largely successful economic policies, including a package of tax increases that had infused investment into the economy and reduced budget deficits, while the latter was mainly forced to run a doctrinaire conservative campaign by a GOP that was already totally under the control of rabid right-wing fanatics thanks to the influence of Newt Gingrich and talk radio.
Although Clinton had run a progressive administration in his first two years, the Republican sweep of Congress in the 1994 mid-term election had changed his approach and made him more interested in centrist issues (read: conservative with a lighter touch). As such, and due to the obviousness of choosing him, I reduce the reward to +3. Dole ran on a platform that completely ignored the successes of the Clinton administration and just pledged a number of right-wing orthodox measures there was no justification for, largely because he could not defy the radicals who had taken over his party, so the penalty for his votes is -5.
Most of us remember the 2000 "election" with cold fury. It was the first election where the news media made it clear that not only were they not objective, they weren't even in the journalism business anymore - they were in the promoting Republicans and slandering Democrats business. George W. Bush was a singularly meritless, psychotic individual with a long record of leaving behind human wreckage in his wake - impoverished communities, shattered lives, and once he became Governor of Texas, corpses. It was exactly what he intended for America, and no one who paid any attention to the sick, evil bastard could have failed to see that. I knew the man was something subhuman by like May of 2000, and the way his Party treated him - like some kind of savior - made it clear he was not alone in being that way. Moreover, there was no justification whatsoever for his candidacy - none at all: The Clinton administration's policies were largely successful; America was prosperous and at peace; there was no basis to change course. So Bush 2000 states get the biggest penalty, -10.
While Gore failed to wage a vigorous campaign until the final few months, allowing himself to be jerked around by media consultants who really knew nothing, his merits as a person and as a potential President were obvious. He had played a direct role in spearheading the initiatives that created the Internet. He had championed policies to address climate change decades before they were a prominent feature even in scientific discussions. Although the shortcomings of the campaign obscured it, he had great potential, and there was truly nothing about him that could have excused voting against him beyond the most superficial appearances of his campaign. The morality dilemma between the two candidates was as stark as possible, idiotic Naderite propaganda notwithstanding. So Gore states get +8. Although Florida was stolen, Floridians elected the state officials who did it and allowed them to get away with it, so that's effectively the same thing.
It doesn't get any starker than the 2004 election: A war hero peace advocate vs. a chickenhawk draft-dodger war criminal; an intelligent man vs. a mindless moron; a patriotic American vs. a psychotic parasite; and countless other extremes boiled down to more or less Good vs. Evil. Although there were no remotely justifiable reasons to vote for Bush in 2000, people could at least be excused for shallow judgments - but no such excuses were possible in 2004. They knew exactly what kind of sick, traitorous monster George W. Bush was, and they either rejected him as decent people must or embraced him as one of their own. Since unresolved questions about the legitimacy of the result were the responsibility of the involved states, the outcome is their responsibility regardless of whether it was stolen from them. Bush is still -10 (the maximum penalty), and Kerry +10.
And of course we all remember 2008: Starkest possible choice on every single level, not only morally, but pragmatically - a singularly brilliant and inspiring leader vs. a singularly awful politician completely out of touch with the country and offering more of the same horrors that the nation had suffered under 8 years of George W. Bush. Not only were there no excuses to vote for John McCain, there were no excuses to not vote for Barack Obama. McCain states -10, Obama states +10. Nebraska, with its one split elector in favor of Obama and 4 for McCain, gets -6 since the scale has to work out to going from -10 to +10.
Comments: Although the numbers assigned to each choice in a race are utterly arbitrary, real patterns emerge since they are applied consistently and put left/right, Democratic/Republican at opposite ends of a numeric axis. Some of the patterns I've noticed: Kentucky and Tennessee always vote together. Likewise, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas always vote together, with Nebraska's split elector in 2008 being the only caveat.
The West Coast has completely recovered its karma from its role in electing Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and shows no end in sight to its karmic rise. Texas, conversely, though it had built up a tremendous store of karma from previous elections, has now completely squandered it and is headed straight to pitch black. West Virginia is likewise in freefall from the great store of karma it built up supporting labor Democrats, and well on track to pitch black within a few more presidential elections.
I was surprised by the deep karmic hole dug by Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, but they seem to be headed upward again. However, I am not at all surprised that the lowest of the low are in the Deep South, or that the best of the best are in the Northeast and Western Great Lakes region.
Cumulative karmic rankings, as of 2008:
MVP: Minnesota (+77)
Pillars of civilization (>/= +20):
Rhode Island (+66)
Massachusetts (+65)
Maryland (+51)
New York (+45)
Washington (+43)
Hawaii (+38)
Michigan (+32)
Illinois (+26)
Oregon (+24) and Pennsylvania (+24)
Wisconsin (+22)
California (+21) and New Jersey (+21)
Upstanding citizens (+10 to +19):
(None in this category right now)
Mediocrities (0 to +9):
Delaware (+8) and West Virginia (+8) (although WV is in freefall)
Not Quite Right: (-9 to -1)
Iowa (-2)
Maine (-4)
Sleaze (-19 to -10):
Nevada (-12)
Assholes (-29 to -20):
Vermont (-21) (yeah, I'm as surprised as you)
Ohio (-22)
North Carolina (-24)
New Hampshire (-25)
Florida (-26)
Missouri (-28) and Arkansas (-28)
Texas (-29)
Vile scum from the depths of hell (negative infinity to -30):
Colorado (-35)
Georgia (-36)
Utah (-38), Arizona (-38), Kentucky (-38), and Tennessee (-38)
Virginia (-39)
Montana (-48)
Indiana (-53)
Idaho (-55), Louisiana (-55), and Oklahoma (-55)
Wyoming (-60)
Nebraska (-66)
North Dakota (-70), South Dakota (-70), and Kansas (-70)
South Carolina (-71)
Alaska (-74)
Alabama (-86)
Most worthless state in America:
Mississippi (-88) (shocker, right?)
Now before you get mad because I've put some blue states in bad categories, remember, this is cumulative, so a state has to support either lots of Democrats or very good Democrats to overcome having supported evil Republican douchebags in the past. Anyway, this was a lot of work for no apparent purpose other than having fun, so I hope you enjoyed reading it and thinking about it.