beyond Blue & Red: shades of Violet

We've all seen the US map with the red state/blue state divisions;
I was talking to my Color Class the other night about these 'purple' maps I remembered seeing after the last election, showing the popular vote.
Now they've posted the 2008 versions, (shown here). The second, misshapen version shows the relative populations of the regions.
All the info about the maps is here.

And via Tara: President-elect Obama speaks to a group on Art & Music Education: