BOSTON, March 13, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- As the presidential campaign intensifies, The Christian Science Monitor announces the launch of Patchwork Nation (http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworknation/), a new election 2008 site that offers a fresh approach to covering politics. Funded by the Knight Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropic organization based in Miami, Florida, the new website replaces the conventional red-state blue-state maps with one that examines the election through the lens of 11 different types of communities around the country.
Former Christian Science Monitor political columnist Dante Chinni is project director and lead correspondent for Patchwork Nation. He says the election 2008 site offers a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the electorate. "The red-state blue-state breakdown of political opinion is inherently flawed because it doesn't explain what underpins voters' decisions," says Chinni. "That's what this new website will explore in real time during the presidential campaign."
Chinni and The Christian Science Monitor, with the help of University of Maryland government professor James Gimpel, have identified 11 U.S. towns and cities that represent the 11 distinct types of voter communities: Monied 'Burbs, Minority Central, Evangelical Epicenters, Tractor Country, Campus and Careers, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis, Boom Towns, Service Worker Centers, Emptying Nests, and Military Bastions.
They've also found a real community to represent each type. So Los Alamos N.M. will be watched to see what's happening in "Monied 'Burbs", while Hopkinsville KY will be studied to gauge the presidential campaign in "Military Bastions."
Bloggers from the 11 designated locales are writing about key issues in their communities, how the issues affect residents' votes, and how the candidates tailor their messages to a particular audience. "The American electorate is incredibly diverse, and the only way to get an accurate picture of how people vote is to look at voting patterns in representative communities," Chinni says. "Ultimately the election will be shaped by how the voters respond to the candidates, and this depends on what's going on in their communities."
To grasp how such dynamics shape the vote in various places, Professor Gimpel, an expert in political geography, has analyzed piles of Census and consumer data to identify these different community types across America and has mapped them county by county. The data used to identify these community types can be found on the Patchwork Nation site and are available for news organizations, groups, and individuals to conduct their own analyses.
Chinni says that information gleaned from the site could have a number of practical applications. "It can help everyone from voters to political reporters to political strategists make more accurate predictions of election results; track - in real-time - the rolling realignment going on in American politics; and gain insight into the ways that the different candidates appeal to different communities."
The Patchwork Nation election 2008 site offers visitors a number of other interactive features including:
* A color-coded U.S. map that reveals which community type their county falls into * A survey that allows visitors to find out how closely their own profile fits into the social and political landscape of their county * Detailed descriptions of the 11 community types and representative communities * Online bulletin boards for those who wish to post comments about the presidential campaign * Daily updates from bloggers in the 11 communities * A timeline showing what types of community groups the five presidential candidates have been visiting
"These communities are like 11 little terrariums," says Chinni. "We're going to watch 11 different national elections happen at the same time in real time."
Christian Science Monitor Editor Richard Bergenheim says the new election 2008 site, Patchwork Nation, is representative of the Monitor's ongoing commitment to in depth coverage of the presidential campaign. "Patchwork Nation gives us the opportunity to discover the issues that different voting groups really care about and to see how candidates tailor their messages to these communities. Several of the cities and towns we are following are in key swing states; it will be exciting to see how the campaigns evolve in these areas."
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The Christian Science Monitor
Jay Jostyn, Monitor Communications Manager
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