If America voted the way that it bought books, then Willard Mitt Romney would be a very, very happy man indeed.
With everyone in America beginning to get Election Fever ahead of the race getting started in earnest with next week’s Republican National Convention – Well, that or Election Burnout; it really depends on how closely you’ve been paying attention to the race so far – it shouldn’t really be that much of a surprise to find out that everyone is trying to find some way to offer their own brand of unique political commentary to add to the breathless and heated discussions that will undoubtedly be going on across dinner tables, dimly-lit bars and any and every kind of social gathering point in the United States between now and November. Into this landscape of potential conversational landmines steps Amazon.com, with its “Amazon Election Heat Map 2012,” which lets you see whether states are ordering political screeds that lean left, or right, and what percentage of which.
“Our 2012 Election Heat Map colors each state according to the percentage of red and blue book purchases, based on shipping address, that have been made on Amazon.com during the past 30 days,” the site explains. “We take the top-selling political books on Amazon.com and categorize them as ‘red,’ ‘blue,’ or neutral. We classify books as red or blue if they have a political leaning made evident in book promotion material and/or customer classification, such as tags. We compute percentages, updated daily, for each state and the US by comparing the 250 best-selling blue books during the time period against the 250 best-selling red books during the same time period, including new book launches.” Different sales formats are counted in different calculations, although Amazon reports that “all orders during the period are given equal weighting in the calculation.”
Somewhat amazingly, only five states in the entire US have a more left-leaning bias overall than right, and even more amazingly, none of those states are traditionally-assumed liberal strongholds like California or Oregon. No, the five states that are buying more “blue” books than “red” are New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington DC, and DC is the only location where “blue” books have a significant edge (Currently, it’s 68 percent to 32 percent). Overall, at time of writing, the US is leaning towards “red” purchases, with 57 percent of purchases trending conservative. The reddest of red states, according to Amazon’s calculations, is Mississippi, with 73 percent of purchases being “red” books (Current top seller: The Kindle edition of Edward Klein’s Obama administration exposeThe Amateur).
Whether this map will offer any true value in the days and weeks ahead remains to be seen. After all, as Amazon itself points out, its customers “read widely and often buy books that don’t necessarily fit with their own views.” But still: It’s fun to see where the nation’s readers’ heads are at right now, isn’t it?
Not accurate. Conservatives simple read more. Never doubt the loyalty of the uninformed masses and rest assured that President Obama will prevail this November.
WHEN YOU LIE YOU HAVE TO KEEP SAYING IT TILL PEOPLE BELIEVE IT–KARL ROVE
CORPORATIONS LOVE romney THEN THEY CAN TAKE THE 60% THAT IS LEFT FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS
LOL – You’re an idiot!
He’s right. So you’re the idiot.
I suspected as much from this group.
Eliminate picture books and the divide will be even larger.
Wait. There’s people in Mississippi who can READ?!
Yes — we can read and a few of us can write —- you might want to read a bit of William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, or Eudora Welty to see the quality of writing, produced in Mississippi. In addition, we do wear shoes, some of us even wear cleats (VERY WELL) — think Walter Payton, Jerry Rice, Eli Manning, Steve McNair and Brett Farve. Also, YOUR ignorance is showing………………grammatically correct should be THERE ARE people in Mississippi who can READ?! Uncertain where you are from………….but before you post, I would research a bit, before I embarrassed myself with stereotypical, TIRED one liners. Just sign me ———–Jackson, MS.
Perfect! Ms. DonnaDonna got her comeuppance.
In addition – the more I thought about that comment, and the perception that others have of my state, I decided I would use this forum to clarify a few things:
1. Mississippi has more elected BLACK officials than any other state in the UNION!!
2. With regard to medicine – we literally wrote the book – Dr. Arthur Guyton wrote the Textbook of Medical Physiology used by most medical students around the world. It is in it’s 10th edition, and has been utilized in medical schools since 1956.
3. The first heart, lung and kidney transplants were all performed in Mississippi by Dr. James Hardy at the University Medical Center.
4. The USA International Ballet Competition (think the Olympics of Ballet) is held annually in Jackson, MS. It has been held here since 1979.
5. We have a space center in Mississippi – Stennis Space Center, where NASA, along with Naval Research Labs and Naval Oceanographic offices are located.
6. The world’s largest auto plant is in Canton, MS (Nissan).
7. We’ve also provided you with Morgan Freeman, Jim Henson, James Earl Jones, Sela Ward, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Buffet, Faith Hill, BB King, and Elvis Presley to name ONLY a few – the list is quite extensive.
8. Also – we are the most generous state in per capita giving. We might be perceived as the “poorest”, but our giving is commendable.
9. Donnadonna – stretch yourself intellectually – you might be surprised, BLESS YOUR HEART, how good it feels to learn things are “exactly as you thought they were!”
Again – sign me Jackson, MS
The analysis is faulty. There are many more conservative books written by conservative media pundits than are written by liberals.. Since there are more conservative books available for purchase, there obviously would be more conservative books sold to conservative buyers.
You’ll also notice if you go to Amazon’s site to look at which books are considered “blue” or “red”, it’s a bit skewed. For example, the #2 (Kindle version) and #4 (hardcover version) selling book on the “red” side is…a book about the Lincoln assassination. What makes it “red”? One of the co-authors is Bill O’Reilly. Yeah, that’s all. It’s not the CONTENT but the AUTHOR that they used to determine it to be a political book.
Yeah, nothing Republican about Lincoln, or democrat about his killers. For added bonus points look-up the word “Copperhead” and then suck on a penny with Abes likeness on it.
Lincoln was a liberal, and his killer was a conservative.
And history books are not the same thing as political opinion books.
Yeah. Fiction – I think you refer to them as Texas Revisionist History Books. Rupert Murdoch has an Empire of Propaganda books – I’m sure you own them all. Palin, Beck, Bachmann, Santorum, Perry, Limbaugh, O’Rielly, Hannity and the rest of the Hate and Fear Regressives of the Taliban Republican party.