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In Kansas, the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds John McCain enjoying a twenty-one percentage point advantage over Barack Obama. It’s McCain 55% Obama 34%. McCain is viewed favorably by 61% of Kansas voters while Obama earns positive reviews from 45%. Rasmussen Markets shows that Republicans are currently given a 86.0 % chance of winning the Six Electoral College Votes from Kansas this fall. Four years ago, George W. Bush won the state by twenty-five percentage points. At the time this poll was released, Kansas was rated as “Safely Republican” in the Rasmussen Reports Balance of Power Calculator. Forty-seven percent...

Love Birds!!!Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer in the doghouse. Consider this week: On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a long-awaited appearance on "Fox News Sunday," a booking that host Chris Wallace had been seeking for more than two years. (The show airs on both the Fox broadcasting network and its sister cable channel.) On Wednesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) granted her first interview to Bill O'Reilly, a commentator viewed with antipathy by much of the left,...

WASHINGTON -- As Democratic leaders try to end the continuing fight for their party's 2008 presidential nomination, the contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton heads into an unusual phase: of the final seven states to vote, only one, Oregon, has supported a Democratic nominee in the last two White House contests. The fate of Obama and Clinton could rest in the hands of voters in states that could have little impact on the outcome of the general election this fall, beginning May 6 with two reliably Republican states, Indiana and North Carolina, and ending June 3 with even more...

While the eyes of the political world were focused on Pennsylvania last week, I played hooky for a day at the invitation of the Lee County Library and bumped into a story as revealing in its way as the latest round in the struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Among other things, it explains why John McCain found it useful to spend last week touring poverty-stricken areas in the South, where Republicans rarely go. On the same day that Pennsylvanians gave Clinton a victory that still left unclear who will eventually be the Democratic nominee, voters in Mississippi's 1st...

If Indiana behaved like its neighboring states, Democratic presidential candidates would come and thunder against globalization, sing hosannas to farm subsidies, pay homage to solid Midwestern values and chomp down pork tenderloin sandwiches in the confident belief that the time and the cholesterol risk would pay off in November. If Indiana behaved like its neighboring states, Democratic presidential candidates would come and thunder against globalization, sing hosannas to farm subsidies, pay homage to solid Midwestern values and chomp down pork tenderloin sandwiches in the confident belief that the time and the cholesterol risk would pay off in November. "That's one...

The Washington Post March 30, 2008 6:00 AM Amongst the moss-draped live oaks of Charleston Collegiate School's 33-acre campus in Johns Island, S.C. - where children of all ethnicities, religions and abilities work and play together - the words of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright seem alien and hostile. His sometimes hate-filled rhetoric is weirdly out of sync with this quiet corner of the Old South, where ancestors of the school's African-American students worked as slaves, perhaps upon these very fields. The differences between this microcosm of a near-utopian community and the world that informs Wright are as stark as the...

Residents of Austin, Texas, home of the state's government and flagship university, have very refined social consciences, if they do say so themselves, and they do say so, speaking via bumper stickers. Don R. Willett, a justice of the state Supreme Court, has commuted behind bumpers proclaiming "Better a Bleeding Heart Than None at All," "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty," "The Moral High Ground Is Built on Compassion," "Arms Are For Hugging," "Will Work (When the Jobs Come Back From India)," "Jesus Is a Liberal," "G-d Wants Spiritual Fruits, Not Religious Nuts," "The Road to Hell Is...

McCain Can Carry the South by Martha Zoller (more by this author) Posted 03/10/2008 ET Updated 03/10/2008 ET “Daddy was a veteran, a southern democrat. They oughta get a rich man to vote like that.” -- Song of the South, Performed by Alabama Ever since The Great Depression, the South has been trying to gain respect from the rest of the country. In every presidential elections since 1968, the winning candidate carried the Old South, and in 2008, John McCain must do so if he is going to win the White House. McCain came south last week to begin to...

McCain Turns Purple States Red?   By Floyd and Mary Beth BrownFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, March 07, 2008 Much of the current analysis of the presidential campaign battle is missing the point. All of the media attention is focused on the Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama heavyweight fight as if it will decide the election. But it seems observers in Washington, D.C. haven’t yet sensed the undercurrent running in the country, which for the first time in four years has turned and is running the Republican’s direction. The election map is changing. And with the changes, it will offer a...

For Democrats desperate to reclaim the White House, the numbers have been tantalizing. In winning Tuesday's primary in the key swing state of Wisconsin, Sen. Barack Obama drew support from tens of thousands of Republicans and independents. He pulled off the same feat in his landslide victory in the Virginia primary the week before, suggesting he could win the state in November. In South Carolina, he had more votes than the top two Republican contenders put together; in Kansas, his total topped the overall GOP turnout. All along, Obama has argued that he can redraw the political map for Democrats...

Barack Obama has raised hopes for a Democratic victory in November by winning primarily in states that normally vote Republican. He argues that this shows he can redraw the Electoral College map in the general election and force Republicans onto the defensive in normally safe areas of the country. However, Hillary Clinton has an argument by reflexion that she can safeguard the Democratic strongholds better -- and that Obama's red-state strength could be overrated: In winning Tuesday's primary in the key swing state of Wisconsin, Sen. Barack Obama drew support from tens of thousands of Republicans and independents. He pulled...

I was wondering how McCain was doing in the Red States, so I marked up a 2004 Electoral College map with a "W" in every state he won, and a "L" in every state someone else won. (I didn't bother marking the Blue States.) McCain's not very popular in states where Republicans actually deliver electoral votes to the President. He has lost far more than he has won. Here is my rather simple, but illuminating map.

What is the relationship between fertility and real estate? ... Is real estate destiny? “It’s something a bunch of us have been thinking about,” said Morris A. Davis, an assistant professor of real estate and urban land economics []. “If you reduce down-payment constraints, more people can buy homes, or buy bigger homes. Does that encourage them to have more kids? I would say nobody knows.” Social scientists have long traced a connection between housing and fertility. When homes are scarce or beyond the means of young couples, as in the 1930s, couples delay marriage or have fewer children. This...

Cannot be posted due to copyright issues...http://www.greenvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080115/OPINION/801150334

"Disillusioned with President Bush's handling of the war, the economy and immigration, nearly half of likely voters in Indiana appear poised to buck 40 years of tradition and vote for a Democratic presidential ticket -- if it includes Sen. Evan Bayh," according to a new Indianapolis Star-WTHR poll. The poll "revealed a growing sense of pessimism, with nearly three-quarters saying the nation is headed in the wrong direction and 28 percent approving of George W. Bush's performance as president."

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The numbers prove it: Southerners are more generous to their churches, while lagging in other categories of giving. Using data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a new study by empty tomb inc. shows that in 2005, Southerners gave an average $816.81 per household to church and religious organizations while Northeasterners gave only $453.84. And the South has been outpacing the Northeast in religious giving almost 20 years. “One point that often ‘defends’ the Northeast is that the region has higher living expenses,” said Sylvia Ronsvalle, executive vice president of empty tomb, a Christian research organization in...

If the early primaries and caucuses don’t decide the Republican presidential nomination, former Sen. Fred Thompson may enjoy an edge in any drawn-out delegate slugfest due to his Sun Belt roots and “red state” strength. That’s because the way delegates are allocated to the Republican National Convention, which picks the White House nominee, gives disproportionate clout to states that President Bush carried in 2004 above what their population would otherwise dictate. Thompson, of Tennessee, is currently polling best against his rivals in many of those “red states,” those that have voted Republican for president in recent years and have GOP...

In South Carolina’s Republican Presidential Primary, the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Fred Thompson leading Rudy Giuliani 24% to 20%. That’s little changed from a month ago when Thompson held a 23% to 21% advantage. Mitt Romney has moved into third place and is now supported by 15% of South Carolina’s Likely Primary Voters while John McCain is barely in double digits at 11% support. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee earns 3% of the South Carolina vote while four other candidates split 5% and 22% are undecided. Sixty-three percent (63%) of the state’s Republican Primary voters say that Giuliani...

Just over a week ago, third-placed Democratic presidential candidate, ex-Sen. John Edwards, broke with tradition and went to campaign in... Montana. It was an odd move, but perhaps also a savvy one. After all, Edwards's advisers are surely aware that heading into 2008, the Mountain West will be a key battleground -- and one that Edwards evidently aims to claim as his own. The Mountain West is traditionally Republican territory. Three of its core states -- Arizona, Montana and Colorado -- have gone Republican in almost every presidential election since 1964 (in 1996, Arizona went to President Clinton; in 1992,...

Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 By: Last week while I was up at Harvard University meeting with black columnists from around the country, including several of my BlackAmericaWeb.com colleagues, Michael Dawson took me to school with his map that shows the overlap between Republican red states and the old Confederacy and slave-friendly territories. Dawson is a professor of government and Afro-American studies who specializes in the ways that race and politics intersect. I was sold. His map spoke to the...

This time around, it seems, the people themselves, Republicans and Democrats, are living in separate Americas. I don't mean the "two Americas," rich and poor, that former senator John Edwards has made the keystone of his campaign in the Democratic primaries. Frankly, there are millions of rich Democrats and more poor Republicans. The Times item, written by Marjorie Connelly, was a second cut at figures in an early July New York Times/CBS poll. The story reported then was about candidates, "the horse race," who's up and who's down. This week's bit was about issues -- actually, responses to the 17th...

In a classic application of bottom-up management denizens of small towns let their elected representatives in Washington D.C. know exactly how they expected them to handle the compromised immigration compromise bill that neither secured our borders, nor was any more enforceable than previous legislation it was meant to "fix."Earlier waves of immigrants – legal and illegal – flocked to CA, , FL, IL, NJ, NY and TX ("gateway" states) but have been dispersing across a wider swath of the U.S. since 2000. The foreign-born, non-English speaking populations of DE, GA, IN, NE, NV and SC have exploded, say demographers, with...

Poll shows Republicans need to work hard to bring longtime constituents back to the fold Republicans have lost significant support among rural voters over the past three years. But the GOP still plows a fertile field in its efforts to regain rural support. That’s the central conclusion of a national poll of rural voters conducted by the Center for Rural Strategies and scheduled for release today. “There is no realignment of rural voters,” said Bill Greener, a communications specialist whose GOP media firm, Greener and Hook, paired with the Democratic research firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to conduct the survey....

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to dominate her rivals in the early Southern Democratic primary states, but her high negatives and polarizing image likely will keep the South in the Republican column in 2008, according to strategists and analysts in the region. Still, analysts who track political trends in the Sunbelt states say Republicans have been hurt by the party's divisive battle over immigration, especially in the South. That could help Democrats next year in Southern states such as Florida and Arkansas if Republicans are not unified behind their party's presidential nominee, they say. "I don't think Hillary Clinton would...

At last I have cover art. It's better than I expected, worse than I hoped. But it'll serve. Let's see if I can cut and paste it, shall we? Here goes...nothing. As soon as I've got the website built, I'll post a link or a URL, or whatever the Freep software allows. Mean time, here's an excerpt.

A review of "Who Really Cares" by Arthur C. Brooks by Wilfred M. McClay of the Wall Street Journal Back in my misspent youth, I helped manage a political campaign. My candidate was, like myself, an energetic liberal Democrat, and we ran a summer-long door-to-door campaign throughout the sprawling district. I accompanied the candidate on his daily outings, recording data about each visit on 3 x 5 cards that had been prepared in advance. They included the party registration of the voters, as gathered from Board of Elections printouts. After a number of weeks of this ceaseless contact with our...

The year is 2014. The election of 2012 sent the nation spinning into a new civil war. The blue states have seceded.

September 27, 2006 Why the GOP Seems Weak in Red Areas Posted by JAY COST RCP Michael Barone recently penned an interesting piece that amplified a point that I made last week -- that the GOP seems peculiarly strong in some areas where Bush was weak in 2004, and peculiarly weak in some areas where Bush was strong. Barone offers a tentative explanation that the political divisions that have defined America since roughly 1996 might be in motion. This might be true -- and I personally have thought that the "Red State/Blue State" dichotomy seems hewn into granite only because,...

Imagine a private group that pays billions in taxes, creates millions of jobs and sells things at ultra-low prices. Too good to be true? It's called Wal-Mart — and Democrats, for some reason, want to kill it off. Here was Delaware senator and presidential wannabe Joseph Biden, at an anti-Wal-Mart rally Tuesday in Des Moines, Iowa, delivering what even The New York Times saw as "a blistering attack" ... "My problem with Wal-Mart is that I don't see any indication that they care about the fate of middle-class people. They talk about paying them $10 an hour. That's true. How...

If you want to understand why Democrats are the minority party in Congress, look at four states: Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky. Before the 1994 elections, when Democrats still controlled both chambers, these Southern states had 24 Democratic House members and 14 Republicans. Among senators, there were five Republicans and three Democrats. Today, there are 24 GOP House members and 15 Democrats, and all eight senators are Republicans. Democrats acknowledge that their prospects for regaining control are dim until they start winning elections in this region. Several of this year's races are lab experiments in this effort, with Democrats...

Latin America: You'd think Mexico's election was lost by a leftist instead of won by a free marketer. But Felipe Calderon's victory reflects growing confidence in free trade in overlooked flyover states. Not that the media have noticed. Virtually all of them covered the election from Mexico City expecting a leftist victory, so it's little surprise that they ignore the winner and focus now on soap opera and sour grapes rallies led by Calderon's opponent, Mexico City-based Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. During the campaign, U.S. media gushed over Lopez Obrador as the "Mestizo Bill Clinton." Now he's preparing to become...

Ok ….going to church does not necessarily mean that you are going to heaven. But according to a recently released two year study, it may mean that you are more likely to vote Republican. Read More

Patriotism and bleak demographics make the young men of Mississippi ideal cannon fodder for the war in Iraq. [snip] Blake Johnson is almost 18. Tan and muscular, he plays third base for the Clarkdale High School Bulldogs. He is a B student who says "Yes, sir" when his coach corrects his batting stance. Wisps of brown hair fall above his green eyes, and a rope choker is clasped around his neck. He lives in a mobile home with his mother and younger brother on Old Highway 80 on a piece of land that never quite dries. [snip] Military recruiters talk...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been gassing up her fund-raising machine across the country - but barely a trickle of cash is coming from the reddest of heartland states. Clinton has just one campaign donor each in Idaho, South Dakota and North Dakota, and two in Montana, according to a review of federal records by PoliticalMoneyLine, a fund-raising watchdog group. She has banked $1,000 apiece from her Idaho and South Dakota loyalists, while the lone North Dakotan chipped in $250. The two Montanans ponied up a total of $750. She has single-digit donors in Alaska, Wyoming and Utah. Still, those...

THE EROSION of the Democratic Party's hold on the South is one of the most important changes in postwar American politics. In 1950, only a handful of congressional districts in the region even featured Republican candidates on the ballot. Today, the GOP holds the majority of House seats below the Mason-Dixon, and in 2004 President Bush swept the South's electoral-college votes. The historic switch from blue to red over the past half century not only robbed Democrats of their assured congressional majorities, it shifted the center of Republican political power from the Northeast to the Sunbelt.

Dan Walters: Voter data suggest California may be more purple than blueBy Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist Published 2:15 am PST Monday, February 6, 2006 The conventional wisdom these days is that California is a solidly blue state - based on Democrats' near-sweep of major political contests over the last decade and especially George W. Bush's two million-plus-vote losses in the state. More accurately, however, California is a purple state, as new voter registration data indicate. California's 15.8 million registered voters now divide themselves into 6.7 million Democrats (42.68 percent), 5.9 million Republicans (34.68 percent), 2.9 million independents (18.8 percent)...

If you live in the Midwest or South, chances are you own a home. If you reside in the Northeast or far West, the odds are greater the dream of homeownership may remain just that, a dream. Data from the U.S. Census would suggest the culprit is historically high home prices and flat median incomes compared to more affordable interior portions of the country. A post-World War II economic boom fueled a steady climb in overall homeownership rates from 55% in 1950 to a near all-time high of 69.1% in 2004. But ownership rates for residents on both coasts lagged...

Greetings from North Carolina, where I'm spending the next few months as a visiting fellow at something called the National Humanities Center. It's located mid-way between the three cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, which together form one of the fastest-growing communities in the United States, along with the region that includes Charlotte, the largest city in the state. Here's an example of what is known as the "New" South, which is booming as never before. For some time economic power has been shifting in this country, away from the old, industrialised North East towards states that were once...

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to take on Republicans in their own backyards when he visits five "red states" to promote a theme that Republican-led Washington is dangerously close to succeeding in both its foreign and domestic goals. “Despite our constant drumbeat of criticism and the help of the media, evidence for a democratic Iraq and a growing economy is seeping through to voters,” Reid said. “Our message of defeat and promise of higher taxes is in danger of being pushed aside by events. This calls for desperate measures.” Reid says he hopes his display of clownish antics, pratfalls and...

CONGRESSIONAL RESHUFFLE The new U.S. census estimates project a likely increase after 2010 of five House seats in Republican-dominated "red" states, one more than previously forecast. Nevada is now expected to gain a fourth seat in the House at the expense of Massachusetts, which would lose one of its current 10 seats. Previous projections had Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah gaining one seat each. The losers would be Iowa, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Each of the states expected to gain in 2010, with the exception of Utah, also won an extra seat after the 2000 census. The projections were...

Southern and Western states are growing so much faster than the rest of the country that several are expected to grab House seats from the Northeast and Midwest when Congress is reapportioned in 2010. Demographers and political analysts project that Texas and Florida could each gain as many as three House seats. Ohio and New York could lose as many as two seats apiece. Several other states could gain or lose single seats. "The states in the Midwest are going through a transition," Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett said. "We're going from a heavy manufacturing economic base to a more...

WARRENSBURG, Ill. — This is Army country, where even in the leanest of recruiting years, even in a time of war, young people step out of farms and tiny towns of rural America to enlist. Nationally, rising anti-war sentiment and news of mounting casualties in Iraq led this year to the most dismal Army recruiting season since 1979. But in the expanses of the Midwest, the downturn has been much less than in other places. In dozens of sparsely populated Illinois counties — places with some of the state’s highest poverty rates — an average of nearly one in 10...

A Look at Charitable Giving State-By-State PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- Here are the latest Generosity Index rankings based on 2003 tax data, followed by average adjusted gross income and average itemized charitable contribution, with the previous year's ranking in parenthesis: 1. Mississippi $34,720; $4,770; (1). 2. Arkansas $36,882; $4,890; (2). 3. South Dakota $37,698; $4,318; (7). 4. Oklahoma $38,344; $4,350; (3). 5. Tennessee $41,140; $5,564; (6). 6. Alabama $39,730; $4,555; (5). 7. Louisiana $37,701; $4,180 (4). 8. Utah $42,291; $6,124; (8). 9. South Carolina $39,301; $4,121; (9). 10. West Virginia $35,771; $3,614; (13). 11. Idaho $38,507; $3,709; (10). 12. Texas...

Liberals would have us believe that they are much more caring and giving than conservatives. Well the recently released 2005 Generosity Index blows that theory out of the water. As a matter of fact, the top ranking for a Red State in this survey is 26th! Read More... Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com

PORTLAND, Maine --Tight-fisted New Englanders traditionally rank at the bottom in an annual index of charitable giving and this year was no exception. But upper-income Mainers stood out as paragons of generosity. New Hampshire was the most miserly state for the fourth year running and the seventh year in the past nine, according to the Catalogue of Philanthropy. Massachusetts was runner-up in parsimony and Rhode Island and Connecticut also were among the half-dozen stingiest.

PORTLAND, Maine — New Englanders remain among the most tightfisted in the country when it comes to charitable giving while Bible Belt residents are among the most generous, according to an annual index. For the fourth year running, New Hampshire was the most miserly state, according to the Catalogue of Philanthropy's Generosity Index. Mississippi remained at the top for generosity. The index, which takes into account both "having" and "giving," is based on average adjusted gross incomes and the value of itemized charitable donations reported to the Internal Revenue Service on 2003 tax returns, the latest available. However, its methodology...

Not long ago, while waiting to meet some friends for dinner, I dropped into a bookstore where I happened to glance through the political bestseller, What's the Matter With Kansas? -- a title borrowed from a once famous article by a once famous editor, William Allen White. I didn't buy the book, nor did I have enough time to read very much of it. But, then, who needs to read very much of any bestseller nowadays? Thanks to the thoughtful tendency of modern publishing houses to restrict themselves to publishing books that can be summed up in a single sentence,...

On a Mark Levin thread today, some one raised the idea of wearing red on Fridays to show support for our troops and to (yes, I'll say it) discriminate us from the DU slime. Fly your flag!

When A. T. Burgum came to the Dakota Territory in 1880, the way to riches lay in the deep, rich soil of the Red River Valley. A generation later, his son J. A. Burgum founded an elevator company in a small town called Arthur (current population 400). The company remained in family hands, and after A. T.’s great grandson Doug Burgum graduated from Arthur’s high school, he left town to attend North Dakota State University and then Stanford. In 1983, after working in Chicago, he returned to North Dakota, lured back by another kind of natural resource: its people. “My...

Conservatives have traditionally embraced religious issues, often giving Republicans the image of being the more "pro-God" party. But now some Democrats are fighting to change that image. In the 2004 election, many voters cited "morals" along with candidate stances on issues like gay marriage and abortion as key to their election picks. These so-called "values voters" overwhelmingly backed President Bush, but Democrats insist that Republicans don't have a monopoly on morality.