Barack Obama's campaign map: reverse imperial mapping?

Maps have always been capable of carrying political messages - some more than others. They have been used throughout history as tools for acquiring territory, waging war and demonstrating power. So when today I saw a similar tactic used by President Obama's re-election campaign I had to write something. It's sort of ludicrous but here's the story: according to the Obama camp, counter candidate Mitt Romney has a number of offshore accounts and, we are told, his tax rate for 2010 was significantly low. Apparently Romney payed the tax equivalent of a teacher (in the US). Let's clarify: he's a millionaire. 

The whole saga, the background story about Romney's tax evasion and the map representing his ostensible incompetence, reminds me of one of the most ubiquitous nineteenth century representations of the world. 

G.R. Parkin's Mercator map of the British Empire was used to illustrate Britain's wealth and power through a display of it's overseas territories in red (or pink depending on the shading). Parkin's and Obama's maps are clearly completely distinct in style and content, never mind the fact that Obama's map exists outside the context of nineteenth century imperialism. Yet Obama's map is also oddly similar to Parkin's map in terms of the political impetus behind its narrative. 

Obama's campaign map

Perkin's Mercator map of the British Empire (sorry about the poor image quality)

In the case of Perkin's map the more 'offshore' land-occupation, the greater the prestige of the British Empire. In the Obama map, on the other hand, the dominance of Romney's 'offshore' accounts highlights a shortage of integrity in Romney's character and undermines the power of his presidential campaign, thus attempting to propel Obama to the top once again. But the message is political in both cases. There's even some red colouring (or coloring to keep the US theme going) thrown into Obama's map, making it more loaded with political and symbolic meaning! My point is not the coherence between past and present - the present is never the 'key' to the past and these two maps have very different uses - but rather simply that maps can still be used as political tools, and Obama's campaign map happens to be a rather obvious example.