Visitors to this site in the past have seen me have all sorts of fun explaining the 2004 presidential election. For example, there is a moderate, but highly significant correlation between life expectancy in a state and the percentage of the vote that went to Emperor Chimpoleon I -- specifically, where the Culture of Life™ is strongest, the people have a perverse tendency to die the earliest.
But now I have found the true key to the election. Here it is.
What this means is, the more a state spent per pupil in 2001 and 2002 on public elementary and secondary education, the smaller the percentage of the vote for ol' Chimpy. The correlation coefficient (Pearson's r) is -.522 (which in a context like this is huge), p <.0005. Gee, what do you think this could mean?
(Source for per-pupil spending is a U.S. census bureau report on state and local government finances. BTW, some of the very rural states, such as Alaska, spend an unusually large amount on non-instructional expenses, presumably student transportation. I suspect that correcting for this would result in an even stronger correlation.)
Edit: Phew, I'm glad I got the picture fixed . . .
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