Also, the lack of a better explanation, like there is for Arizona, Alaska, and Massachusetts.

Actually, you know what? I changed my mind. Oklahomans probably just got really concerned about high marginal tax rates.

Nothing about the mysterious change from a 700-something to a 200-something lead, but he’s got some projections picking up from there.

Massachusetts makes sense, because it’s Kerry’s home state.

Look, obviously not every single person who voted for Kerry and then McCain is racist. Obviously there exist other factors. But I’m confident that race was a significant factor for many voters in the upland south.

Parts of Colorado and Massachusetts moved toward McCain. Old people moved toward McCain. Small towns moved toward McCain even as his edge in rural areas slipped.

The explanations for all of these trends are probably very complex. I’m sure race was a factor, just like race was a factor in McCain getting less than half of Bush’s black vote. But just assuming that people voted based on race because they live where you already think racists live is way too simple.

My conclusion from the data is that there is something about the upland south that either McCain really appeals to, or that dislikes Obama. I WONDER WHAT THAT COULD BE.

Do you see how this is circular?

This is exactly what happened in this election for the most part, except for Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, etc. which went way off to the right. Why did that happen? Is it because McCain’s policies appealed particularly to those folks for some reason? Or because they’re racist? Which do you think is more likely?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wroj0FLvzs

It’s much better, in a depressed economy, to err on the side of too much stimulus than on the side of too little.

A lot of people have been writing about this lately. Here’s what (Libertarian and writer for The Atlantic) Megan McArdle has to say:

You can argue whether FDR, on net, helped a lot, helped a little, or mildly hindered recovery. But you cannot argue that if FDR had gotten into office on January 20th, 1930, America would have avoided most of the pain of the next three years. The progression of the bank panics and industrial slowdown throughout the next two years is well described, but not well understood. But the problem was clearly not merely a lack of government activity, or fiscal stimulus. Hoover was, contra popular myth, fairly active. It’s just nothing he did worked. Neither did most of the things FDR tried.

Clive Crook at FT says:

The economy promptly tanked. In the end it was revived not by the New Deal but by the war FDR had promised to stay out of. He won two more presidential elections.

The similarities between 1932 and 2008 make the temptation to draw parallels impossible to resist. One lesson that might give the president-elect comfort is that voters can overlook a lot of failure if they are sure that a president is on their side. Persuading them of this was FDR’s surpassing talent. Mr Obama may have the same knack.

The history of the Great Depression is obscured by partisan mythology. One must steer a middle course between regarding FDR as a kind of saint who delivered the US from economic collapse and global conflict, and a malicious bungler who trashed the constitution and prolonged the Depression.

He goes into a lot more detail there in what is a really good article.

Obama did better than Kerry among all kind of social and geographical groups, but we don’t conclude that this was because of racism against whites. Why should we conclude that McCain’s douing better among some groups than Bush is because of racism against blacks?

I guess what’s interesting to me here is that the all-important racist demographic is the only one that voted particularly strongly for McCain.