I get this all the time and it still bugs me.

That, in 2000, red states were Republican is not some media bias painting the GOP as communist.

I get asked this question all the time.

Here’s the deal — back in the 1800′s in Texas, the color coding first appeared to help spanish speakers. The parties chose their own colors. Democrats chose blue and Republicans chose red.

In 1970, when the National Atlas was printed, the incumbent White House part was assigned the blue color and the opposition was red. Because the GOP was in the White House, they were blue.

The Associated Press picked this up as color television and newspaper printing gained steam. While network television picked their own, the AP standard was that the incumbent party was blue and the challenger was red.

In 1984, America was a sea of blue for Ronald Reagan, just like in 1996, America was mostly blue for Bill Clinton.

In 2000, the Democrats held the White House, so Al Gore got the blue color and George Bush got the red color.

That election was so historic, the “red-state/blue-state” terminology took on new meaning. The media stuck with it.

And that’s all there is to it. And that’s all there ever was to it.