ON Dec. 19, the online magazine Slate corrected an installment of ''Moneybox,'' a recurring column by Daniel Gross. The article had ''reversed the states' electoral colors,'' the correction stated. ''It's the blue coastal states that opposed Bush, and the red states that supported him.''

The arbitrary, it seemed, had become axiomatic. Neither Mr. Gross's column, nor the correction, referred to a particular map. Instead, they both alluded to what has become, in the four years since the Bush-Gore showdown, something of a Platonic political tableau -- one from which this simple, harmonic maxim now emanates: Democratic states are blue, and Republican states are red.

''I didn't realize it had become so official,'' said Mr. Gross, who also writes periodically for The New York Times. ''I must have missed the memo.''

There wasn't one, of course, but it is testament to the visual onslaught of the 2000 election -- those endlessly repeated images of the electoral United States -- that the Red State/Blue State dichotomy has become entrenched in the political lexicon.