Q&A on the News

Q: Why are the Republicans depicted as red and the Democrats as blue by the media?

—Bill Montgomery, Decatur

A: Tim Russert, a former television journalist and host of NBC's "Meet the Press," is credited with assigning the color scheme during the 2000 election, highlighted by George W. Bush's controversial win over Al Gore. "I'm sure I wasn't the first to come up with it," Russert told the Washington Post in a 2004 article. "But I will take credit for the white board," which is what he used to track votes. Russert died in 2008.

Red and blue have been used by the media for years to show which states were voting for Republicans or Democrats, but not consistently until after the 2000 election. For example, NBC used blue to identify states that voted for Gerald Ford (Republican) and red to identify states that went with Jimmy Carter (Democrat) in 1980. Time used the same color scheme in 1988, as did The Washington Post in 2000. A week after the 2000 election, talk show host David Letterman suggested making “George W. Bush president of the red states and Al Gore head of the blue ones,” the paper reported.

Q: Recently, you had a very good column on the use of Camp David. I have a follow up question: How much do taxpayers pay for the upkeep?

—Carel H. Thompson Jr., Hoschton

A: Camp David's budget was $8.5 million in 2012, according to the Washington Post.