“[This map uses] a color scale that ranges from red for 70% Republican or more, to blue for 70% Democrat or more. This is sort of practical, since there aren’t many counties outside that range anyway, but to some extent it also obscures the true balance of red and blue. ”
By: Mark Newman
Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems
University of Michigan
[via Ethan Zuckerman]
Cyrus Farivar is the Senior Business Editor at Ars Technica, a radio producer and author. His book, "The Internet of Elsewhere," was published in April 2011. 
it would be interesting and useful to see this same map with the counties scaled by population, rather than by area.
Try this: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/countycartpurple512.png
oh, here it is: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/countycartpurple1024.png
yes! that’s the one!
why does the other map look like hippie puke?