"interesting historical maps..."

Just received the e-mail below from my Italian friend. He tried to post this as a comment, but couldn't get it to work from some reason. Rather than bury it in a comment, I thought it was worth posting as a separate entry to draw your attention to it. I believe he intended it as a comment to this post, which quoted my Minnesotan friend GM.

He was also replying to my request in this post, where I asked for more maps portraying the election results. Over the weekend came across a DailyKos post which directed me this collection of maps. I urge you to check it out.

Here's the Italian's perspective:

From: the italian stallion
Subject: interesting historical maps.....
Date: November 7, 2004 7:38:05 AM PST
To: Me

Hey man,
I tried to post a comment (to you and to GM) but it didn't work so, before it's too late I decided to email u...
1) The first is about "interactive" maps.
http://www.search.eb.com/elections/etable3.html#1
This is not interactive in the way you want it, I guess, but it was very revealing to me.
I was interested to compare the "evolution" of the electoral vote and its distribution since WWII till today.
FDR ruled before WWII. Truman won in 1948 (check the map, the "blue" states are republican here...curious distribution, isn't it?) Then Eisenhower came to power and defeated Stevenson in 2 elections, very decisively (check the map !! the few dem states are in the "racist" south, SC, NC, GA, AL MI....).
Then JFK, with I would say a political miracle in 1960 (although someone says he lost that election, Dley in Chicago, you know, bla bla....) regain the power for Dem. He was killed. Johnson won the 64 election, during Vietnam war. RFK was killed. MLK was killed. Johnson passed the Civil Right bill, saying that "with this bill we have lost the south forever...". The south didn't switch to Republican immediately (look at the map of 68 election), they rather voted for Wallace, the American Independent and Texas was still Democrat !!!
Then, '72 election was a plebiscitarian mandate for Nixon. You would think that the South was in a lockbox for Rep from now on. WRONG !! Look at Carter's win in '76: he basically carried the south and the east !! Then Carter lost to Reagan, probably one of the most polarizing president of the past 60 years. US was all blue. Clinton made the miracle again in 92, with great help from Perot (I suppose, I suspect Perot played a big role but I don't have detailed infos). Look at the maps in 92 and 96 !! It looks like the electoral vote split depending on the time lag !! Then Bush in 2000 and 04 (the last election map is very similar to the 2000 one).
It's amazing how different americas emerge election after election, isn' t it?
And CA? I thought CA has always been Democrat !!! I couldn't be so wrong !!
2) The second comment is for GM. How do you think Dems felt after '80 and '84 landslide wins of Reagan?? I feel the hopelessness of GM. But Bush will only be in power for 4 years, not forever. And Bush is one-of-a-kind: I think he is a minority in the Rep party. GM, Church-driven politics is a losing strategy in the long-term. Dems gotta be smart. After all, they lost Ohio and they lost the elections.
GM, you can't talk about facts with evangelic christians, you need to speak to the 150,000 Bush's voters in Ohio (for example), and keep talking to the 55 million americans who voted Dem last Nov 2. Here I agree with S: we need to support democracy by supporting a network that can spread facts, as a virus, and "fight" back the powerful church-driven catholic/christian network. It takes time but you/we live in a great democracy, we have so many unprecedented freedoms and it's just a matter of will (look at Brazil). We need to encourage people's will to build the network. It will work, GM.

.......having said that, I am watching Tim Russert, Meet the Press....Carl Rove is on air........

Ciao S and sorry for the long email.

On the contrary, molto gratzi mio amico. This is what I want to get going here--a conversation about where we go from here. Let's get it going.