I dunno... I think elephants have been getting a bum rap here

[CrispyQ]

6. It would be interesting to know the history of the elephant/donkey thing.

The red/blue thing wasn't always the case. Apparently there was an aversion to red cuz of the commie scare. Personally, I think ABC nailed it in '76 & we should go back to that.

Red vs. Blue: A history of how we use political colors
By Philip Bump

November 8, 2016 at 9:27 a.m. EST

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/08/red-vs-blue-a-brief-history-of-how-we-use-political-colors/

snip...

What's clear is that, prior to 2000, talking about "red states" and "blue states" wouldn't necessarily have resulted in any understanding from your audience. In 1992, David Nyhan of the Boston Globe wrote of his mixed feelings about Bill Clinton's candidacy. "[W]hen the anchormen turn to their electronic tote boards election night," he wrote, "and the red states for Clinton start swamping the blue states for Bush, this will be a strange night for me." You'll notice that those colors are backward, by our current understanding. Nyhan is being figurative we can assume, recognizing the standard red-blue split if not the significance of the colors.