Daffeel

Bonjour à tous
Je me vois confronté à une traduction que je trouve coriace et c'est pour cela que je viens demander votre aide.
Le texte en question est le suivant :
A noter que les passages en gras sont ceux dont je n'arrive pas a avoir une traduction satisfaisnte par moi-meme donc seuls ces passages ont besoin d'etre traduits. Le reste est pour le contexte :
"But yesterday's victory also signalled a shift in America itself. It has been under way for several decades, but now it is revealed in all its clarity. The electoral map showed it in full colour: "blue" coasts where the Democrats won, vast "red" swaths of the Republican heartland everywhere else.

Democrats need to stare long and hard at that map and at this comprehensive defeat. Exit pollsters, who failed so dismally to predict the result, made some telling discoveries. Many Bush voters admitted their unhappiness on Iraq and confessed to great economic hardship - two issues which ordinarily would be enough to defeat an incumbent. But these voters backed Mr Bush, because he reflected something they regarded as even more important: their values.[...]

In 2000 this cultural split was dead-even: 50-50 America. This time it was 51-49 America, with the conservatives in the majority."

Je remercie d'avance tous les traducteurs qui se pencheront sur mon problème.
Merci
Daffeel

femuse

My French is not too good - so I will try to explain instead of translating
La carte electorale montre ce "shift" en couleur:
all the States bordering both coasts (Atlantic & Pacific) were won by the Democrats - blue.
Hearlands of America: c'est le reste, le Centre du pays. Where so called "Traditional values" are the strongest.
swath/swatch souvent employe pour bande de couleur. [won by Republicans: red]. And: it means a path cut through something, like grass, land. So, this red band of color conveys a marching victory too. Like an army cutting a path through the land.

Comprehensive here means total. The Democrats must really study that map carefuly (to learn why it was such a total defeat for them).
"exit pollsters": people coming out of the voting places [existing]were polled, asked why they voted the way they did, what had been their main concern.
This information was then badly interpreted and, election night, TV networks made a mistake in predicting the winner: the answer is here: "issues which ordinarily" - for example, when people say they care most about the economy, this usualy means that they had voted against the incumbent (Bush) - this time, in the end, they did the oposit. So, "exit pollsters failed to predict the result and they discovered why"

Quote:

In 2000 this cultural split was dead-even: 50-50 America. This time it was 51-49 America, with the conservatives in the majority."

pretty simple:
for the 2000 elections, cette division culturelle etait "dead-even" : in a race, 2 runners are dead even if they arrive at the same time. You owe me $50, I owe you 2 X $25: we are dead even.
In 2000, that cultural division was cut right in half, 50% each.
Cette fois, 51% a 49%, les conservatifs ont gagnes.

Muddy enough for you ?:D I can clarify some of my statements.

Daffeel

Merci beaucoup femuse, ton explication m'a permis de comprendre presque l'ensemble du texte mais une imprecision demeure pour moi quant à la phrase " The electoral map showed it in full colour: "blue" coasts where the Democrats won, vast "red" swaths of the Republican heartland everywhere else. En fait je n'arrive pas a en tirer une formulation complete et exacte en francais.

Mais sinon merci beacoup pour tes explications
Daffeel

femuse

It's quite simple:

It looks like the map of the United States has been non stop on TV: the States which voted Democrats colored in blue, red for Republicans.
The electoral map, showing the result of the elections, had blue along both coasts, and a lot of red everywhere else. The election result was shown in "full" color.
"Full" color is not really acurate: blue & red only.
I would say "la carte electorale le montrait en couleur: ...."

Daffeel

Ok d'accord femuse
Merci beaucoup
Thank you very much
Daffeel

marpier

Mon anglais est pauvre et lointain, mais ici, cela me semble être un vrai cas d'école de tournures idiomatiques. J'essayerais donc une traduction assez éloignée:
La carte électorale montrait, en bleu, les zones (ou aires, ou régions...) gagnées par les Démocrates, en rouge, celles remportées par les Républicains.
showed it : La carte électorale le montrait... , ou, suivant contexte : comme la carte électorale le montrait, les zones bleues ont été gagnées par les Démocrates, celles en rouge ont été remportées par les Républicains.