Earlier I had explored the concept of generating state-by-state karma maps based on the accumulation of "points" for how a given state voted with each presidential election since 1932. Now, with Florida conceded to Obama, I will generate the new karma map.
Because it's cumulative going back 80 years, there are some counterintuitive karmic scores. Here is the karma map just before this election:
I had accidentally ended up with more gradations for negative karma than for positive, but this (also accidentally) makes sense because the worst negative karma is substantially deeper than the best positive karma. For this election in 2012, we can honestly say the choice was overwhelmingly stark between good and evil, so I'll assign +10 to Obama states and -10 to Romney states - the maximum rewards and penalties for a single election under my karma system:
Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are recovering from deep holes they dug themselves in eras past, while the vertical from North Dakota through Oklahoma has been in uninterrupted moral freefall since 1968. Texas has been in uninterrupted freefall since 1980. West Virginia is currently in freefall, and most likely headed toward pitch black over the next few presidential elections. The rest of the South other than Florida has been in consistent freefall with a few brief upticks for decades, and North Carolina might not be the Renaissance story it had seemed in 2008 - Obama had a superb ground game in NC in 2012, but ended up losing it by a couple of points. That doesn't bode well for the state's future karma in elections where the Democratic campaign is not a genius masterpiece of political organization.
Since it took moving heaven and Earth to get just past dead even in Florida, despite their karmic gains from 2008 and 2012, they will probably backslide in more ordinary elections. Virginia and Ohio seem to be genuinely improving, although they could backslide. Iowa, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico appear to really be crystallizing on the side of good.
As before, the MVP state is Minnesota - it has sided with the best interests of the nation in every single election but one since 1932. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maryland are the next best. And also as before, the most karmically vile states in the nation are Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, and South Carolina.
Anyway, the scoring of each election's choices is arbitrary, but the patterns that emerge are nonetheless consistent and indicative of real cultural strengths and weaknesses.
I would add that what these numbers show is where the "heartland" states of each movement are. Basically, the heartland of liberalism is Minnesota, while the heartland of conservatism is Mississippi. This isn't quite what one would guess - you'd think our best state would be Massachusetts and theirs Texas, but the record tells the tale.
3:10 PM PT: I should reiterate that this is only karma from presidential elections. I haven't delved into Congress or state governance, so there are almost certainly nuances that aren't represented here. - although ultimately it is a reasonably close image of the states' personalities.