I posted the maps that Ralph Luker and David Beito had suggested looked like mirror images–1896 and 2004. Two correspondents, Ash Valentine and William Quale, have pointed me to the 1916 map, with Bush playing the role of Woodrow Wilson.
Here is the 1916 map from PresidentElect.org:
It is kind of sobering to see George W. Bush as a cross between Woodrow Wilson (a big-government wartime President) and William Jennings Bryan (a religious populist). The interesting question is not the men, but the complete shift in the sources of party strength.
Another noteworthy thing is that most of the historical political map makers still use the long traditional colors for party maps–red for Democrats and blue for Republicans, blue perhaps suggesting bluebloods and red perhaps suggesting socialism. If you called someone a “red,” you would think him on the left (consider the movie “Reds”). When I was young, all the TV networks did the same (red for Democrats, blue for Republicans), but I am guessing that this consensus broke down sometime in the 1970s or early 1980s, and was completely switched over on all networks at least by the 2000 election. It was probably a conscious decision to reverse the implications of the standard red=left, blue=right imagery, but I have found it awfully confusing. It’s nice, however, for making the comparisons to 1916 and 1896.
UPDATE:
It is even more sobering to see this map showing the free states and territories compared to the slave states, posted by Kevin Drum, following a comment by Ken Layne.
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