Santa Cruz! Midland! It's a great place to start!

Metro Mike lives, everyone!

That's a reference to a project following the 1988 presidential election that ranked all of America's metropolitan areas based on the percentage of votes each major candidate got. If I remember correctly, Fort Walton Beach, Florida, was Mad Dog Bush's best area, but for the life of me I can't remember what Dukakis's best area was.

Now, 20 years later, I've put together a ranking like this based on the 2008 election! I've ranked all 364 metropolitan areas - not counting the 2 in Alaska, because the website I got these from doesn't break down Alaska results by county equivalent.

Obama's best area is Santa Cruz, California. This list of his top 20 areas shows a disproportionate number of college towns:

1. Santa Cruz, CA
2. Santa Fe, NM
3. San Francisco, CA
4. Pittsfield, MA
5. Santa Rosa, CA
6. Boulder, CO
7. Laredo, TX
8. Madison, WI
9. Ithaca, NY
10. Honolulu, HI
11. Durham, NC
12. Ann Arbor, MI
13. San Jose, CA
14. Burlington, VT
15. McAllen, TX
16. Washington, DC
17. Salinas, CA
18. Trenton, NJ
19. Chicago, IL
20. Iowa City, IA

McCain's best area is Midland, Texas, which is near one of the home bases of the Bush crime family. McCain's top 20 is exclusively Southern, except for the areas in Utah and Idaho:

1. Midland, TX
2. Provo, UT
3. Amarillo, TX
4. St. George, UT
5. Gainesville, GA
6. Odessa, TX
7. Abilene, TX
8. Cleveland, TN
9. Idaho Falls, ID
10. Logan, UT
11. Fort Walton Beach, FL
12. Dothan, AL
13. Wichita Falls, TX
14. Longview, TX
15. San Angelo, TX
16. Houma, LA (home of the fascist school uniform policy)
17. Dalton, GA
18. Panama City, FL
19. Morristown, TN
20. Decatur, AL

I don't know what the best areas for the third party candidates are, for the website I saw lumps them all into "other."

Cincinnati ranks #260 for Obama and #101 for McCain. (The exurbs speak!)

I made this!