Lady Keikomyau wrote:
One thing that always bothered me is that the Republicans are red and the Democrats blue. It goes against the standard. Though I do think the US Government still goes by the proper color scheme, unlike the media who are doing it wrong.
The Red/Blue thing is a recent innovation dating back to the Bush/Gore election of 2000. Prior to that, news companies used whatever colors they fancied for their maps although there was a trend towards "red" for the challenger and "blue" for the incumbent. This meant that you had a pretty map of white states becoming a pretty red, white & blue map as the election unfolded. Although Gore wasn't technically the incumbent, he was the VP for the then-current administration.
When the 2000 elelction dragged out and we all stared at electoral state maps for weeks on end, the Red/Blue ones used by the majority of the major news organizations became the de facto standard and as we heard "As you can see from the blue Gore states..." and "The number of votes in the red Bush states..." over and over, the idea of Red = Republican / Blue = Democrat solidified in people's minds.