Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 19:24:49 -0400
From: connectnc.net
Subject: Red people , blue people , whats the difference ?
In my near 50 years one thing that has always been crystal clear is that , Red people are republican , Blue people are democrats . The red or mostly red with white and blue elephant represents the GOP . The blue or mostly blue with red and white donkey , ass , mule , whatever you prefer to call it represented democrats . These are two set in stone facts so when election times came candidates from either party would use either the symbol or color of their respective parties so voters would see their campaign signs and know what party to associate them with . Many voters who aren’t that informed and use these symbols and colors to guide them to a specific party in casting votes by association with a name . Politicians know this and that is another reason why they still use these colors and symbols to this day.
I got into a conversation today with someone confused about a certain Chatham candidates political party affiliation as that candidate was using campaign signs of the opposite party’s color ! Just to cover my behind and make sure they were not misleading me I made it a point to see some of these signs and sure enough they were the wrong color for the party the person represented . I came home and did a little research into this thinking something was just weird about it and found out several interesting tid bits .. There have been tight elections thought to be thrown one way or another by this unique tactic . A candidate would use the color of the opposite party as the dominant color on their campaign signs to grab uneducated voters in certain areas from the opposite party by a simple mind trick of association . Voters would associate the color of their party with a name and vote the name without carefully reading the ballot . Apparently people vote quickly and if they don’t know much about a particular office or candidate they vote by party but if a name sticks out in their mind associated with their party’s color they vote by name even if its the opposite party . You will associate the color of your party with the name even though the name is under the opposite partys line . You will vote by color not realizing what you did . It is a mind trick magicians have used for centuries that really works so with that said please take time to vote by knowing what party each candidate is affiliated with . Don’t guess to vote and take time to clearly read your ballot when you vote . I agree it sounds crazy but politics in Chatham County are far from sane at times . There is one other color of people , red , white and blue , we are the independent thinkers and voters not affiliated with either party . We often vote across both party lines to get candidates voted in who represent our goals , our nation and respect the constitution and the republic it protects . Not all conservatives are red , not all liberals are blue and when this happens things either get blended into a confusing mess or a perfect patriotic platform 😉
Goodnite Mark
I was just wondering what happens when your color blind or don’t know the difference between an ass or an elephant? Vote for the person Maybe?
Actually, if you want to credit (or blame) anyone for the act of attributing a color to a political party, look no further than your TV set. Occasionally one could find a magazine article that employed graphics to illustrate the breakdown of voting patterns using color to illustrate the two parties but it didn’t come into its own until the early 1980s.
The protocol was to use one color for the incumbent party (usually blue) and one color for the opposing or challenging party (usually red, although sometimes yellow). The colors represented who was in the dominant position in the race. They were not tied to any party.
During the 1984 presidential election David Brinkley pointed to a graphic map of the United States showing Reagan’s 49-state landslide and famously referred to it as a “sea of blue” (referring to using blue to illustrate the Republican party).
“But in 2000, for the first time, all major electronic media outlets used the same colors for each party: Red for Republicans, blue for Democrats. Partly as a result of this near-universal color-coding, the terms Red States and Blue States entered popular usage in the weeks following the 2000 presidential election. Additionally, the closeness of the disputed election kept the colored maps in the public view for longer than usual, and red and blue thus became fixed in the media and in many people’s minds. Journalists began to routinely refer to “blue states” and “red states” even before the 2000 election was settled. After the results were final, journalists stuck with the color scheme, such as The Atlantic’s cover story by David Brooks in the December 2001 issue entitled, “One Nation, Slightly Divisible.” Thus red and blue became fixed in the media and in many people’s minds despite the fact that no “official” color choices had been made by the parties. – Wikipedia
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made use of the color scheme when it launched a national “Red to Blue Program” in 2006. This was probably not the first employment of “official” campaign color schemes but it served to further cement the identification of a color to a political party.
Also from Wiki:
“The choice of colors in this divide is counter-intuitive to many international observers, as throughout the world, red is commonly the designated color for parties representing labor, socialist, and/or liberal interests [5] [6], which in the United States would be more closely correlated with the Democratic Party. Similarly, blue is used in these countries to depict conservative parties which in the case of the United States would be a color more suitable for the Republicans. For example, in Canada party colors are deeply ingrained and historic and have been unchanged during the Twentieth Century. The Liberal Party of Canada has long used red and the Conservative Party of Canada has long used blue, and in fact the phrases Liberal red and Tory blue are a part of the national lexicon, as is Red Tory, denoting Conservative members who are social moderates. Similarly, the symbol of Britain’s Labour Party is a red rose (and the socialist song ‘The Red Flag’ is still sung at party conferences), while the British Conservatives are traditionally associated with the color blue.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_state_vs._blue_state_divide
I agree with Shelby – vote for the person, not the party (and certainly not the color!)
‘Soup