June 8, 2007
RED TIDE:
French center-right looks set for solid majority in Parliament (Katrin Bennhold, June 8, 2007, International Herald Tribune)
President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right camp appears assured of winning a majority in parliamentary elections on Sunday and on June 17. Barring a political earthquake, the only question is how big that majority will be and what he will do with it.Since Sarkozy became president last month, opinion polls have given his Union for a Popular Movement party between 360 and 430 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly.
"The choice is between a blue wave or a blue tsunami," said Stéphane Rozès, head of political research at the CSA polling institute, referring to the Popular Movement's traditional color.
Gonna have to reverse the color scheme if they want to join the Anglosphere. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 8, 2007 5:00 PM
Traditionally, i.e. for about a century since communism appeared, red is coumminist, and later, leftist/socialist color. Canada's Harper is blue.
We are just different from the rest of the world.
Posted by: ic at June 8, 2007 6:17 PMI think the TV networks used to rotate the colors every four years, until 2000 when the election map started the Red State/Blue State lingo that everyone seems to have picked up on.
Posted by: h-man at June 8, 2007 6:26 PMYes, the 2000 election was the first time that all three networks used the same colors to show Dem or GOP victory in the Presidential race. Previously, there was always one network that was different from the others.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at June 8, 2007 6:49 PMAnd I seem to remember that a few years back, someone in the Democrats' national organization asked the networks not to use red to denote Democrats on electoral maps, presumably because of the socialist/Communist connotations.
Posted by: John Barrett Jr. at June 8, 2007 7:51 PMSome time back I heard a 9/11 conspiracy theorist opine that Democrats were aligning themselves with the blue helmets of the U.N. and the coming world order. You know, shiny, happy people going to and fro as they wish under one mostly benevolent overlord. Redefining sovereignty, anyone?
Methinks he was a crackpot, but then again, maybe blue is the new red.
Posted by: Ed Bush at June 8, 2007 9:26 PMJohn is correct. The Dems wanted the GOP to be painted red, the color of blood and war, not to mention fiscal failure, so naturally the nets obliged. I don't think we should accept the red color designation and insist the media refer to us as the "red, white and blue" states instead.
Posted by: erp at June 9, 2007 8:54 AMRodger on the color business. The reason the colors used by the Democrat toadies in the MSM are bass ackwards is because they thought that might better serve their political masters.
Due attrention to rectification of names would reverse this back to the traditional red for leftists, blue for republicans.
Posted by: Lou Gots at June 9, 2007 8:45 PM