Presidential elections in Rhode Island are usually landslides these days. Book sales are a lot closer.

That’s according to Amazon.com, which has created a “heat map” showing which political books sell the most copies in each state. Across the U.S., 58% of book purchases are “red” books and 42% are “blue” ones – and red books have the advantage in 46 states. Rhode Island is one of four exceptions, with 51% of book purchases classified as “blue.”

Ezra Klein points out that it’s possible to quibble with Amazon’s classifications: Is Robert Caro’s LBJ bio really a partisan-leaning “blue” book? Is Politico’s latest e-book a red one? Here’s the local list as of Wednesday:

On the blue list, Joe Stiglitz sells better in Rhode Island than he does nationally, while Howard Zinn is more popular nationwide. On the red list, the Politico e-book doesn’t even make the national list while it’s #5 in Rhode Island, while U.S. #3 “Obama’s America” by Dinesh D’Souza doesn’t crack Rhode Island’s top five.

Amazon.com and Rhode Island have had a rocky relationship since 2009, when the e-commerce giant cut off its affiliates here in retaliation for the General Assembly’s passage of an “Amazon tax.”

Perhaps the time has come for a détente. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is embarking on a building spree and putting up warehouses all over the country to compete with brick-and-mortar retailers by cutting shipping times, Farhad Manjoo reports for Slate:

Some of these facilities are very close to huge swaths of the population. Amazon is investing $130 million in new facilities in New Jersey that will bring it into the backyard of New York City; another $135 million to build two centers in Virginia that will allow it to service much of the mid-Atlantic; $200 million in Texas; and more than $150 million in Tennessee and $150 million in Indiana to serve the middle of the country. … Amazon will open two huge distribution centers near Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, and over the next three years it might open as many as 10 more in the state. In total, Amazon will spend $500 million and hire 10,000 people at its new California warehouses.

The Providence metropolitan area is home to 1.6 million people, and the I-95 corridor between Boston and New York cuts right through Rhode Island. The state has more than 60,000 unemployed workers and plenty of communities desperate for economic development. Amazon could build one of its warehouses here and have easy distribution access to consumers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, not to mention inexpensive labor. And if it did open a facility here, it would start collecting sales taxes and paying property taxes, too.

Governor Chafee recently hosted site-selection consultants - is anyone in Rhode Island doing anything to reach out to Amazon.com and see if the company would consider building a warehouse here? Is anyone even aware that they should be, considering what a distraction 38 Studios has become?

(On a somewhat related note, The Washington Post reports growing momentum for e-sales taxes.)

Rhode Island got cut off from Amazon.com’s affiliate program two years ago this month after the General Assembly passed a law to force e-retailers to collect sales tax. The measure hasn’t brought in any new revenue, but policymakers have stuck to their guns in saying Internet sellers shouldn’t be exempt from collecting the tax.

Among those who make that argument is Governor Chafee. His controversial 1% sales tax proposal was specifically “designed to sunset upon Congress’s enactment of the proposed Main Street Fairness Act,” which would force Amazon and others to collect state sales tax, he wrote in a March letter to lawmakers. The administration estimates the state will miss out on $70.4 million in tax revenue in 2011-12 for purchases made from Amazon and other “remote sellers.”

The question has always been whether the Main Street Fairness Act actually stands any chance of passing in Congress. Now it looks like the legislation’s prospects may be brightening, Politico’s Michelle Quinn reports:

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is expected to step into the escalating Internet sales tax battle as soon as this week with a bill that would allow the 44 states — plus Washington, D.C. — that collect sales taxes to require out-of-state online retailers to pay up.

Durbin’s Main Street Fairness Act is similar to some previous congressional efforts to weigh in on whether states can force online businesses to collect sales taxes on items sold to state residents. But while those efforts failed, this year may be different. …

Similar legislation introduced last year by former Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) went nowhere. However, the dynamics in Congress may have changed now that a growing number of states have passed or are considering bills to address the issue and online businesses are faced with the possibility of complying with many different state laws and many different state sales tax rates.

Durbin isn’t just any senator, either. He’s the Majority Whip – the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat – and a close ally of President Obama who hails from the same state, Illinois, which is among those suffering from huge budget deficits and seeking to get Amazon to start collecting sales tax.

The politics of the legislation are interesting, too, since the business community won’t necessarily be united in opposition to it. Brick-and-mortar retailers don’t like how the sales tax exemption gives Amazon and other e-retailers a competitive advantage, and Amazon itself has said it favors a national-level resolution to the issue.

(photo: Amazon.com Inc.)

Rhode Island companies have been blocked from Amazon.com’s affiliate program since June 2009, when the e-retail giant cut ties with its local partners to protest a new state law aimed at forcing the company to collect sales tax.

Back in my PBN days, I reported that the so-called “Amazon tax” failed to generate any new revenue for Rhode Island’s state government in its first six months. (Check out this Slate story to understand the background on why this fight is happening at all.)

I checked again a few months back, and the state still couldn’t point to any tax dollars brought in because the law targeting Amazon is on the books. Since this was a pet issue for Rep. Steve Costantino, the tech community is hoping the law may be repealed now that he’s no longer running the House Finance Committee – although that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, however, Barnes & Noble is apparently trying to make inroads against Amazon by going after its former affiliates in states like Rhode Island and North Carolina that are being scorned by the Kindle-maker, The Wall Street Journal reports:

“If Amazon doesn’t want you, we do!” Barnes & Noble said in a letter posted on its website Monday.

The largest U.S. bookstore chain by revenue said it would collect and remit sales taxes for goods sold through its BN.com website so that sellers and customers wouldn’t “have to worry about being hassled or persecuted by state tax auditors.” …

In Monday’s letter, John Foley, president of BN.com, specifically targeted “affiliate sellers” in states “that may enact e-fairness legislation” that would require Amazon to collect sales tax on sales to people who live in those states.

(photo: Amazon.com)

Here’s an interesting item – Conn. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has started an investigation into whether Amazon.com, maker of the Kindle, and Apple, maker of the iPad, are illegally stifling competition in the fledgling electronic book market, CNNMoney reports:

Both Amazon and Apple have agreements with those publishers that ensure they’ll receive the best prices for e-books over any of their competitors, Blumenthal said in a prepared statement.

Those agreements — dubbed “most favored nation” clauses — block the publishers from offering deeper discounts to competitors than they do to Amazon and Apple. While such deals aren’t straight-out illegal under antitrust laws, they’re also not always legal either, Blumenthal said in his letters. …

Blumenthal isn’t the only consumer advocate probing e-book pricing: The Texas attorney general made his own inquires earlier this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

(And yes, Blumenthal is running for a U.S. Senate seat right now, so he probably doesn’t mind all the publicity this high-profile campaign will get him.)