Much better county map

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by Guest, Nov 6, 2004.

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  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Here is a much better county by county breakdown.

    scroll down for the county map.

    On the map at the top of the page, point to Wisconsin for some amazing numbers.
     
  2. Splas

    Splas New Member

    Look at: Illionios, California, New York, Michigan, Pennslyvania, Oregon, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington, all of which were heavy Kerry states but are almost completely red.

    I guess Bush doesn't sit too well with the city slickers, oh drat :). Because well all know if the large city's vote for the candidate that does not get elected, then something went horribly wrong, right?
     
  3. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    The website was so slow loading that I gave up.

    But luckily the San Jose Murky News printed a large format county map on Thursday.

    Frankly I find this kind of graphical data fascinating. Political scientists, sociologists and historians will be talking about what these maps mean for years to come.

    I looked at Wisconson and a pattern immediately emerged: Milwaukee and Madison went blue, predictably. But the rest of the blue counties were largely a rural strip in the southwest of the state, along the Mississippi. The eastern half of the state was pretty solidly red. So why did the sate split that way? My guess is that it's an ethnic effect. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that the west of the state drew more Catholic settlers or something. So does Wisconson demonstrate a Protestant-Catholic split?

    Illinois showed a similar pattern, a little less strongly. With the exception of Cook County, the state's population behemoth, and a few scattered places like Champaign-Urbana which predictably went blue, the rest of the blue counties were in the northwest contiguous with the Wisconson blue-belt and scattered more thinly here and there south along the Mississippi. I'd guess that's a similar ethnic settlement effect.

    The old Confederacy is basically red, but there's a distinct blue belt running down from southeast Virginia through south central Georgia and Alabama. I'd guess that these are the heavily black counties. There's another blue enclave, the largest in the south, along the middle Mississippi, from eastern Arkansas and the western edges of Tennessee and Mississippi. My guess is that it's lots of black voters again.

    Idaho is solidly red, except for one blue county, which seems to be the Sun Valley ski resort. Lots of celebrities have second homes there, and its a very different demographic than the rest of the state. The ski-resort-blue pattern is clearly repeated down in Colorado as well, in places like Aspen. (Park city Utah remained red.)

    California has one of the most striking maps in the entire United States.

    Despite the state being a reliable blue bastion, there are only a relatively few blue counties. Los Angeles County, the most populous county in the US with 10 million people (as many people as Michigan) was predictably blue. But with the exception of Imperial (heavily Mexican) and Santa Barbara (a university county with a celebrity presence), the rest of Southern California was red. That includes San Diego (heavy military presence), Orange, the Inland Empire and Ventura. That tells me that the white Southern California suburbs remain Republican.

    Northern California shows a different pattern. Here all of the Bay Area counties are staunchly blue, including the suburban counties. I can verify that my own San Mateo County, upscale and suburban, went blue by a large margin. The Bay Area blue effect extends south to the burgeoning Monterey Bay area and north to the Wine Country. It also extends northeast to the Sacramento area (government workers). If the blue pattern can be summed up in one word, it would probably be "saltwater". If a Northern California county touches on saltwater, it's blue.

    But the rest of Northern California, away from the seashore, went solidly red. The Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the Sierra Nevada and the Oregon-style wilds of far northern California around Mt. Shasta. One exception was Mono County which shows a tie!!! The only county in the US that turned in a tie, as far as I can see. The other exception was Alpine County, California's smallest county with about 400 inhabitants, which went blue.

    My explanation for this amazing Northern California pattern can be stated in one word: Immigration. I'm not talking about foreign immigration as much as domestic immigration into California from other states. The blue coastal counties seem to be the more stylish places, the places where very few people are native Californians. They are places where everyone comes from somewhere else, often because they wanted to live somewhere cool. So there's a very real self-selection effect in the Bay Area and its cultural orbit. It's a place where dissatisfied middle-American liberals dream of someday moving.

    Meanwhile the agricultural and mountain counties are far more apt to be inhabited by native Californians. The mountain counties in particular have lots of newcomers, but they tend to be people who grew up in the Bay Area and decided to leave in hopes of finding a more wholesome environment to raise their kids and an area where they can turn proceeds from the sale of a modest house in a declining urban neighborhood into a scenic multi-acre wooded rural property.

    Another thing I noticed: the Sierra ski-resort counties are red. This is not the Aspen pattern. My explanation is that these are commuter resorts, not places where celebrities actually build homes and live. They certainly ski, but they commute in, have fun and maybe stay a few days, then commute out. The local residents are the red mountain people, not blue flatlanders from the Bay Area.

    All in all, this is great stuff. Anyone can do their own workup of their own state and probably find lots of interesting voting patterns.
     
  4. Guest

    Guest Guest

    And in a number of those states Bush was within grasp of winning.

    After reading all the exit poll results, listening to the various commentators and politicos on both sides, I have come to believe Kerry lost mainly because he really had nothing of any substance to offer.

    Prior to the election, I asked a number of people I know why they were voting for Kerry. The vast majority said they didn't like him, didn't really know where he stood on the issues, but were really voting against Bush.

    I think this was Kerry's main flaw. Very few people could articulate his positions. During the campaign he kept talking about his plan but never elaborated.

    I picked up a copy of his book Our Plan for America a few days ago and it is basically a litany of what he sees wrong with America and the Bush Administration. He quotes some historic documents but never really clearly lays out his vision.

    I have some unsolicited advice for him. Since he is still in the Senate, he can sponser legislation after legislation to do whatever it was he wanted to do had he been elected President.

    My guess is he will be as ineffective as ever, miss as many meetings and hearings, and probably not seek reelection.
     

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