The 2008 election according to...

The 2008 election according to Male voters.
Obama - 49% - 325 EV
McCain - 48% - 209 EV
Toss-up - 4 EV


The 2008 election according to Female voters.
Obama - 56% - 393 EV
McCain - 43% - 145 EV


The 2008 election according to White voters.
Obama - 43% - 222 EV
McCain - 55% - 316 EV


The 2008 election according to Black voters.
Obama - 95% - 408 EV
McCain - 4% - 0 EV
N/A - 130 EV

Another PetaFLOPS Computer

Top 500

Six months after the first PetaFLOPS computer debuted on the on the Top 500 supercomputer's list, another appears, Jaguar, although slightly slower, so Roadrunner remains the fastest computer in the world. With an overall increase of total FLOPS of nearly 45%, nearly half of the computers on the list are new. Generally there's a slow down immediately after a new computer takes the top spot, but the introduction of Jaguar seems to have kept the pace moving.

One random tidbit, the slowest computer currently on the list, would have been in the top 10 as late as November 2004 and is more powerful than all 500 supercomputers from November 1996 combined.

Surrendering the Big States

A long time ago, I made the observation that someone could win the presidency by just winning the 11 largest states. This, of course, required a candidate to win states as divergent as Texas and New York. I left it as a unlikely hypothetical theory.

Thinking about the most recent election I realized that McCain didn't win many heavily populated states. So I looked it up and found that of the 11 most populated states, McCain only won two, Texas and Georgia. This left Obama with the other 9, a grand total of 222 electoral votes. That's not to say he won them easily, North Carolina and Ohio were neck-and-neck during the month leading to the election.

The Electoral College system has been criticized for over-representing small states, the chances of winning off of this advantage is close to nil. Republicans are generally thought to be favored in this over-representation due to the western states, however, the New England states, which favor the Democrats, are just as over-represented. In fact, the combined vote of the 15 most over-represented states is completely canceled out by California, and of those 15, Obama won 7 and McCain won 8, coincidentally, the same as in 2004. Certainly, the combined population of all those states is less than half of California, so fewer voters would need to be won over, but strategically, it's probably better to focus on winning one state than 15.

The Democrats winning in the big states give them a huge advantage, whereas just a fifty percent win in California would guarantee 55 votes, an average fifty percent win among the most over-represented states would not even guarantee half those electoral votes. In fact, Obama won an average of around 52% among the most over-represented states, but won less than half of their electoral votes.

While it's unlikely that the Democrats could maintain their wins among the big states, the advantage they have with the big states means that they have to be competitive in fewer states. By continuing to focus on rural voters, "Real America", the Republicans have basically conceded any state with a major population center. This could present a real problem for Republicans in future elections.

Random Election Update

So I was wrong about it getting worse for the third parties. They managed a collective 1.34% according to preliminary numbers. So not exactly a good year for third parties, but all of the consistent third parties managed to increase their votes this time around except for the socialist parties.

One thing I started thinking about while driving back to Maggie Valley today, Perdue will be the first female governor of North Carolina. I'm surprised that I hadn't heard anything about this before. Also, Elizabeth Dole was the first female senator from North Carolina and has now lost to another female candidate in what is probably the first major election between two female candidates in North Carolina. This plus the fact that North Carolina narrowly elected Obama really shows that North Carolina is becoming more progressive.

While checking to see if in fact Dole was the first female senator, I've discovered that no senator has been able to hold the Class 3 Senate seat for more than one term since Senator Ervin retired in 1974. He held the office for 20 years. This does not bode well for Richard Burr, whom I have not heard a word about since he won back in 2004.

The Non-Religious Vote

I've been going through exit polls past and present and among other patterns, I've noticed that the number of voters that give "none" as their religion has been increasing every election, albeit slowly. Not only that, but these non-religious voters appear to be getting more Democratic every year.

1996 - 7% None - 56% for Clinton
2000 - 9% None - 61% for Gore
2004 - 10% None - 67% for Kerry
2008 - 12% None - 75% for Obama

These non-religious voters seem to be coming from formerly Jewish and other minority religious voters as the percentage of Christian voters has remained steady since 2000 at about 81% after falling 5% between 1996 and 2000. Since Jews and other religious minorities tend to vote for Democrats, then it kind of makes sense that the non-religious voters would vote for Democrats.

In other news, Jewish voters apparently didn't hear that Obama was a Muslim that will destroy Israel as 78% voted for him. Either that, or people who called Obama a Muslim were racist who felt more comfortable saying they didn't want to vote for a "Muslim" than a black man.