Is blue the new red?

Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, was on Face the Nation this morning and something didn’t seem quite right. After nearly 30 years of a steady diet of red power ties on Sunday morning talk shows, there he was in a power blue tie.

Then I realized, it’s not an accident. Check the lineup from Friday’s Obama news conference:

And I can’t quite tell from this picture of Friday’s news conference by Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s Secretary of State, on Mary Lahammer’s excellent blog, but from a distance, isn’t that a bluish tie?

Ritchie popped up on KSTP today on Tom Hauser’s show (which I believe is taped) and we have not one, but two power blues.

On Meet the Press, meanwhile, House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn was sending a bipartisan message.

Perhaps last week’s election was the first part of the men’s department stimulus package.

Update Mon. 11/10 4:35 p.m. – President-elect Obama met President Bush at the White House today, and injected new life into the blue-tie theory.

(Washington photos via Getty Images)