[flxmglrb]

How exactly is this a "secret weapon"? Obama did not carry any of the states in this region except perhaps Florida (it's still being counted), which is not even among the states with these swatches of ancient plankton deposits.

Also, if you look at the map it's clear the blue patches are clustered around major highways and rivers, which is where the population centers will obviously be. As we've seen before, the Democratic / Republican divide is very strongly along the lines of urban vs. rural. There doesn't seem to be any mention in the article of how that factors into this. Obviously there is a bit of chicken & egg thing going on with population and highways, but you would think there could at least have been some discussion of this.

[impendia]

Plausible, but it turns out to be mistaken.

Look at this map of results in South Carolina:

http://www.politico.com/2012-election/map/#/President/2012/S...

County population is negatively correlated with voting for Obama.