Posted on 11/03/2004 6:23:56 PM PST by M. Peach
I thought I had all the answers regarding politics until my one of my teen aged sons asked me (and yes, I'm proud to say both of them are conservative) why large cities tend to vote Democrat, and rural areas - or mostly the rest of the country, Republican?
Can I get some opinions out there?
I was approaching the subject with the intent of exploring the differences in red and blue areas. Some others join in to be obnixious.
The underlying impression I get is that you're defensive of conservatives in urban coastal California because at some level you can't or won't accept the fact that unless a sea change occurs, relatively soon, the urban coastal areas of California will become relatively hostile and unliveable to people with our values.
Can you make money, get a nice house and live in relative safety their now? Sure, but for how long? I myself just got approximately $100-200 of new taxes slathered on this year and am just recently denied the opportunity to own a type of firearm I desired. People with income over a million just got tagged with a 1% tax boost to facilitate a load of mental health goodies. Heck, if that was my income, I'd move out of spite.
I'm willing to bet that the minute a significant economic downturn occurs in California, the predominantly 'Rat voting masses will lay into those with income and assets with such a vengence that they will either leave in droves or try to split the state (the latter, not likely to succeed).
No one on this thread is talking trash about urban conservatives. They're talking about an environment that encourages liberals and is designed to parasitize or drive out conservatives.
The handout crowd lives in cities.
On the other hand, I think the smarmy, elitist, self-centered liberal types tend to flock to high population-density areas, and this reflects how those areas vote. Other than us four Republicans, not a single person in my office has ANY clue whatsoever as to why they lost, other than "maybe it was an evil DIEBOLD plan!!!"
What we NEED to learn from this is that we NEED to put poll-watchers at EVERY precinct that we suspect will be used to "manufacture" votes. If the Democratic city officials kick us out, we NEED to get the State troopers in immediately - the State Attorney's office, or the FBI if they are uncooperative. We *can* crush voter fraud, if enough of us take the time to watch the Democrat machinery like HAWKS.
A very relevant question:
1. High density urban residents tend to rent more often than own. Home ownership tends to foster conservative interests.
2. Impovershed people tend to be crowded in dense areas (Public Housing, for instance) and vote for those who support their welfare safety net.
3. The old neighborhoods or ghettos of large cities, are home to specific ethnic groups and tradition bounds them to vote for one specific party, usually Democrats.
4. Urban workers (government or blue collar) in inner city areas are union members, which back Democrats as a rule.
The low income city dwellers have their hands out expecting the government to pay for their food, housing and medicine. The suburbanites work hard to support themselves and resent paying taxes to support the freeloaders.
Rather than resort to ad hominem, why don't you go back and demonstrate where I'm wrong?
Patently false. Those of us in urban areas feel the pinch just as strongly.
Vote fraud. Entrenched democrat machines. Union thugs. MSM is source for news. Lastly "meal ticket" voters.
As a former union member (from a prior job), I still get AFSCME mail. Their phone tree sent me at least five phone messages and an equal number of campaign brochures for Kerry (the Hope and Vote campaign). Their organizers are quite effective.
I am honestly thinking that it's high time we return to apportioning electors based solely on which candidate captures a majority of the State's congressional districts. This would ensure that the mega-cities like New York don't disproportionately affect the outcome of their electoral vote - Philadelphia would be given equal weight as its surrounding counties. Heck, with a system like this at play, we may even stand a chance of winning California!!
What do y'all think about something like this? I think this is closer to the way our country was originally designed to run, in any case. Anyone recall when we started apportioning electors based on the popular vote tally? (If memory serves, it was 191x-ish - Afaik, this is decided on the State level, not in the Constitution, but I could be wrong)
(And frankly, I can't see any states approving measures like this anytime soon. It's mostly wishful classical-Republican thinking on my part at this point...)
Smog and noise messes up their senses?
I was a former member of the AFL-CIO and I got spammed by them for years. I feel your pain.
The Democrats need to keep them segregated in these areas to protect their voting base.
You've hit the nail on the head. One reason there are so many red-zoners on the outskirts of major cities: thirty years of federal-court-ordered forced bussing. People who didn't want their children bussed moved into neighboring counties, out of the reach of the dictatorial judges. After awhile, these 'exurban' areas became seen as great places to raise a family, and young people planning families moved there from the start.
I'm glad you posted this - I may find out why Iowa wasn't defined as Democrat or Republican in the run up to voting. I thought of it as midwest, a lot more rural than urban and wondered why it wasn't either Party's territory. Earlier today I saw the votes for Republican easily outweighed Democrat... but I'm still not sure why it couldn't be predicted sooner.""
They had the results earlier in Iowa than they had them in Ohio. Since Ohio was the big prize, exposing the results of N Mex and Iowa would have taken the suspense out of the results of Ohio and kept sKerry in the game longer. As it was, Iowa, N Mex, AND Nevada all went for BUSH, along with Ohio. The media just didn't want to give out the little prizes while they were hoping that Ohio would go to sKerry. Even today, they were trying to redo simple math with the statistics of Ohio.
Gotta love how Dan Rather pissed in Ed Bradley's beard over the math of the Provisional ballots in Ohio. Ed pointed out the math probabilities of having the provisional ballots making up the difference sKerry needed, and said it couldn't happen. Rather snidely commented that Ed Bradley wasn't a "mathematicion", and Ed spoke right up and said "I used to be a math teacher". Rather just pushed the remark aside, embarrassing Ed Bradley.
I would love to be a fly on the wall at CBS to have heard what Ed had to say to Rather after the show. Rather needs to be blistered for treating Ed in that manner. While I don't watch 60 minutes any more for their strong bias, I still think Ed Bradley is a class act. Newer reporters cannot hold a candle to him.
It depends on the state. St. Louis City, for instance, is deep navy blue (81% for Kerry this election), but only has about 350,000 people.
Neighboring St. Louis and St. Charles County between them have about 1.5 million people. The city is always whining about forcing the neighboring counties into one big megalopolis, but guess what - our state constitution mandates a vote. Since the population differences are so skewed, something like that would never pass, at least not here. Of course, if a city can annex without a vote, then that state has far worse problems.
Because urban folk think meat comes out of a plastic wrapper. Think about it.""
And milk comes from the grocery store in a plastic jug. They never seem to connect the cow to the event.
Here's an interesting crime stat I noticed:
Fredericksburg, Virginia is 50 miles from either Washington, DC or Richmond, VA. It is a city of 19,200 people.
It is also completely in charge of the liberals (most likely thanks to Mary Washington College). It went for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in the recent election.
Fredericksburg's City-data.com crime index = 382.2 (higher means more crime, US average = 330.6)
Now, let's look at Manassas, Virginia, a city solidly in charge of conservatives that went for Bush in 2000 and Bush in the recent election. Manassas, Virginia is a city of 35.135 people and is 20 miles from Washington, DC.
Manassas's City-data.com crime index = 277.3 (higher means more crime)
Another data point is that it recently came out in the local Fredericskburg paper that Fredericksburg's teen pregnancy rate is SIGNIFICANTLY above the surrounding counties of Spotsylvania and Stafford. If I recall correctly, it's almost double.
Based on that, the only conclusion that I can come to is that liberalism and social pathology go together like flies on crap.
You forgot to mention that rural dwellers tend to be the most stuck up, cliquish people on the face of the earth. I lived in a tiny East Texas town for almost 10 years, and never did fit in. Moved back to my element, Dallas, and was amazed at how friendly the people are.
The biggest source of racism in this country is the Irish, and their ingrained hatred for the blacks. That is why the biggest pits of racial animosity are northern Irish dominated areas.
We saw this in the Boston School-Busing riots.
We see it still in my city in Irish dominated Kensington and Grays Ferry which are the most extreme anti-black areas.
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