[Proj] Canonic North-American Projection

[Patrick Mézard]

[Sorry if this message is a dupe. First, I tried to send through the 
gmane interface but the previous mail seemed to have disappeared in limbo]

Hello,
I would like to know if there are canonical projections to display maps 
of North America (USA + Canada). I am not looking for specific 
properties, just to find a representation US people are accustomed to 
(think US elections results maps for instance).

I thought there would be some kind of Lambert Conic projection that USGS 
or other official agencies would prefer among others but I cannot find 
any sanctified datum/transformation. Web searches or quick looks to 
MapInfo returns several proposals for secant parallels for Lambert SP2 
projections applied to NAD27 datums but no canonic one.

What should I use ? Is there one with a registed ESPG or GeoTiff 
identifier ?

Thank you for any hint.

Patrick Mézard