MSN recently published Experian PLUS credit rating scores by state; it's a veritable canvas awaiting the paints of interpretation.

The cheap version finds one noticing the jello-like layering of colors in a general north-to-south pattern. "The South once again proves why it's at the bottom of our country", a friend quipped with regard to the trend. Preferring a deeper, more robust analysis in justifying my regional biases, I rolled up my sleeves and dug into the numbers.

I began by hypothesizing the results. Republican ideals, touted as fiscally conservative, are those generally lauded and held by Big Business and the wealthy. Moreover, Republicans largely contend they can spend their money more wisely than government. Consequently, Republicans tend not to support government spending. As Democrats tend to support government spending, it stands to reason Republicans must then spend their money more wisely than Democrats. Ergo, Republican-voting states should on average score higher in the credit ratings than Democratic-voting states. They simply have a more money-wise populace.

I took this to the test.

Matching credit ranking with the Republican-won states in the 2004 Presidential election, I discovered the two were correlated negatively at .493 (p=.0003). "That's weird", thought I. Correlation not begetting causation, I pressed on.

Running a simple regression of [% of state voting for Bush] and [Electoral votes = Republican (bivariate)] against [credit ranking], I found interesting results. The former explanatory variable proved insignificant. The latter, however, proved significantly negative (p=.002), with an R-squared of .27; loosely interpreted, a state's relatively poor credit ranking is in part explained by it voting Republican.

At least, that's what my computer tells me. I'm just saying.