Coffee shops vs 2012 election results

An interesting map of the US comparing blue states with "highest number of coffee shops per capita" states at I Love Coffee. (HT: @treesbarc)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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The Snowden Principle

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=631255472 Quinn Raymond

I think it speaks more to the correlation between density and political beliefs:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/11/the-density-divide.html
Joe Buck

So, does coffee cause people to vote for Obama? No, the correlation is more indirect. There are more coffee shops in places with cooler or damper climates. Slavery wasn’t practiced in places with those climates, so they weren’t part of the Confederacy or a territory that allowed slavery, for the most part. That means that the Republican Southern Strategy wasn’t aimed at capturing those regions, and since states that voted for Romney are closely correlated with former slave states, those states are negatively correlated with coffee consumption.

You’re welcome.
- Boundegar
  
  Climate. How clever. But that’s not it. You see, consumption of coffee increases blood flow to the brain. In fact, in the Middle Ages, Moslem kings tried to ban coffee because it promoted independent thinking, and thus sedition. Coffee drinking is directly correlated to intelligence, which has been demonstrated to cause Democratic voting.
  
  You’re welcome.
  - acerplatanoides
    
    As evidence: coffee hour is the Unitarian sacrament.
    - Boundegar
      
      Yea every denomination says that. Nice to see that heretics like coffee too. Doesn’t invalidate my point.
      - acerplatanoides
        
        You’re entirely sure I was trying to invalidate your point? That’s quaint.
        
        maybe someone needs to stimulate some the bloodflow to their brain? I usually make the mistake you just did when I’ve had too much.
      - Boundegar
        
        Haha no. I was playing. Dammit my emoticons are broken.
      - acerplatanoides
        
        @boundgear – I thought there was a chance you knew that Unitarians secretly enjoy being called heretics.
- jacklaughing
  
  Haha, you have no idea what you’re talking about do you? You’re funny Joe Buck.
BlueVelvetCrossing

… Because it makes more sense to have a higher number of competing businesses within areas of high density population then putting a bunch in small towns.
- acerplatanoides
  
  If that’s the case, you’d think cities would be crawling with Job Creators.
  - SamSam
    
    Um…. they are. There are far more business, employers and employees per square mile in a city than there are outside a city.
    
    That fact was completely obvious, but I looked it up anyway. Here’s a map: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/09/geography-business-density/2807/
    
    NYC, LA, Boston, etc all have the highest numbers of business per square mile.
    
    Or maybe you were joking…?
    - acerplatanoides
      
      Then why did Obama win those areas, if they’re so densely packed with the JC’s?
      - SamSam
        
        Maybe because they didn’t buy into the Republican storyline that Obama was bad for jobs…?
        
        You seem to be trying to argue against reality (number of businesses in urban areas) to fit your beliefs about who voted for what.
        
        Another tip: when people tell you that folks only voted to get hand-outs, remember that blue states are net givers to the federal government, while red states are net takers. The Obama voters subsidize the Romney voters…
      - acerplatanoides
        
        Tell me what I believe about what, and maybe I’ll agree. What you said there involves too much presumption for me to respond respectfully.
        
        “You seem to be trying to argue against reality (number of businesses in urban areas) to fit your beliefs about who voted for what.”
        
        I’m not, not even close.
        
        Another tip: people don’t like “another tip”
      - SamSam
        
        Ok, so I may have been reading you wrong, and apologies if so. What did you mean by your question “Then why did Obama win those areas, if they’re so densely packed with the JC’s?” then?
        
        To me (unless you were being intentionally ironic — Poe’s Law and all that) that is the definition of begging the question: your own question seems to simply assume the story that “job creators” wouldn’t vote for Obama.
      - acerplatanoides
        
        Thanks for asking. I’m not sure I’m capable of staying a step ahead of your assumptions about what I must mean so I’m just going to agree that there was irony involved, and it was directed solely at BlueVelvetCrossings statement. Not at your beliefs.
        
        Part of what i am saying is that anyone who uses businesses to stand in for people in politics will develop the conclusuons they deserve.
Jason Baker

Reminds me of the 7-11 vote-with-your-coffee-cup-choice thing (http://www.7-eleven.com/7-Election/NationalResults.aspx ). Obama won overwhelmingly there. I thought Vermont and Utah were both interesting cases, though. Romney won Utah in real life by huge numbers, but still lost the coffee contest there. It’s as if there’s some strange correlation there between people who would support Romney and people who would not drink coffee. :) But Romney won the coffee cup contest in Vermont, of all places. But I also suspect no self-respecting Vermont liberal is going to get his/her coffee at a 7-11.
- MrKahuna
  
  There are only 2 7-11s here in Vermont. Both are in rural areas that probably favored Romney.
- http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns
  
  Most mormons who do drink caffeinated beverages prefer super large 64 oz (half a gallon!) insulated mugs of Coke or Pepsi because it’s cheap, they last all day, and cola doesn’t fall under the ‘hot drink’ rule coffee or tea does.
  
  There’s actually quite a few coffee shops here in Salt Lake (chain and indie) and typically at least one starbucks in every satellite town, but the state is so very sparsely populated too.
tylerdurden

“Most Number of Coffee Shops Per Capita” Really?
- acerplatanoides
  
  I am jack’s raging bile duct
TWX

I don’t see a strong correlation. Five states have high numbers of coffee shops but went for the political right, while ten states with small numbers of coffee shops, predominately in the New England region, went for the political left. So, 15/50, or 30%, went “the wrong way”.
- SamSam
  
  Yeah…. the correlation’s kind of crap, I have to say.
  
  I bet you could make a dozen better ones. Cycling to work? Number of diverse immigrant groups? Colleges per square mile?
- http://anaraug.blogspot.com/ Walker Shurlds
  
  72% of the top 20 coffee states voted blue.
  43.3% of the bottom 30 coffee states voted blue.
  
  So a coffee state is about 1.5x as likely to be blue as a non-coffee state, I guess?
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

Coffee is an insidious 700-year-old Islamic conspiracy, the final goal of which is to destroy America.

That’s right, liberals. Drink your qahwa from an NPR mug! Get excited! Then PRAY TO ALLAH, that’s what coffee is for.

http://i.imgur.com/qsciG.jpg
- acerplatanoides
  
  Crescent and Starbucks, is that what the future holds? :)
  - SamSam
    
    Croissants and Starbucks, I think you meant…
    - acerplatanoides
      
      Only if france falls to the caliphate first. Pffffffft.
- jacklaughing
  
  This guy is apparently from my home town and people there are nuttier than a truckload of fruit cake so he might actually be serious, even though he comes off as sarcastic. #grainofsalt
  - SamSam
    
    Who does, SedanChair?
    You can tell ’cause you come from a furniture town or something?
    - acerplatanoides
      
      tylerdurden and jacklaughing were in a movie together once, but we’re not supposed to talk about that.
- niktemadur
  
  Then when all you liberals eat a Five Guys burger, skip the christian and patriotic ketchup, put only heathen and socialist mustard on it.
  
  http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/1649/slide_1649_22603_large.jpg
- niktemadur
  
  Let’s invent coffee, Yousef, to subvert “Am-EH-ri-gah” when it is created five hundred years from now.
  Death! To all that which hasn’t yet been created and is beyond our ability to create in our wildest flights of imagination!
  
  Seriously now, I wonder what the Viennese made of all those sacks of coffee beans in the Ottoman tents when the siege was mysteriously abandoned overnight.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    FYI – it’s Ahm-REE-kah.
    - niktemadur
      
      Ahm-REE-kah
      
      Isn’t that a Flaming Lips album?
      I know, that’s Zaireeka.
IamInnocent

Those people who report that “correlation” also advertise unicorn meat! Nuff said.
Marya

I am not so sure about your theory here.
I was listening to some Tea Party propaganda lady here in Ohio yesterday and she clearly said that the reason urban centers are all blue is because we are all on Welfare and Food Stamps.
The News woman even asked her “Are you sure it’s not the colleges and universities?”
“Nope,” she said “It’s The Welfare,”

BTW, can you buy a double grande skinny half-caf with food stamps?
- TWX
  
  That probably depends on if the coffee shop is in a grocery store and is integrated with the store’s point-of-sale…
  
  /snark
  - Lupus_Yonderboy
    
    It would probably just come up as “prepared food” (like a sammich) and thus not be eligible for supplemental nutrition assistance anyway.
    
    /pedant
- acerplatanoides
  
  Yeah, we need to agree with these people reflexively. It’s the only way out of the madness. They live to fight.
  
  *we don’t have to mean it. They deserve the respect they show.
SamSam

Woah, serious CSS fail here after Xeni added the picture…

Everything’s gotten super squished-over.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
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echolocate chocolate

It’s called the TEA PARTY not the COFFEE PARTY. DUH
feetleet

Oh Arizona, you’re so mavericky.
perchecreek

I’m working on a Waffle House Conjecture, but the intermountain/upper midwest high plains states don’t fit.

Waffle House locations by state (map).
http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

I remembered this:

http://www.ediblegeography.com/the-spatial-distribution-of-americans-in-relationship-to-starbucks/