Taking a look at an electoral map of the election, one thing jumps out at you:
Note that the vast majority of states won by President Obama border on the water. The Atlantic, Pacific, and Great Lakes are bastions of Democratic Party power.
Should Red states that also border on the water be worried?
Obama won Virginia and Florida and narrowly missed victory in North Carolina. But he also polled as well in Georgia as any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, grabbed 44 percent of the vote in deep-red South Carolina and just under that in Mississippi — despite doing no substantive campaigning in any of those states.
Much of the post-election analysis has focused on the demographic crisis facing Republicans among Hispanic voters, particularly in Texas. But the results across other parts of the South, where Latinos remain a single-digit minority, point to separate trends among blacks and whites that may also have big implications for the GOP’s future.
The results show a region cleaving apart along new electoral fault lines. In the region’s center, clustered along the Mississippi River — where Bill Clinton polled most strongly — the GOP remains largely unchallenged and the voting divide between blacks and whites is deepening. Nearly nine of 10 of white voters in Mississippi, for instance, went for Republican nominee Mitt Romney this year, according to exit polls. About 96 percent of black voters in the state supported Obama.
The pattern is markedly different in the five states that hug the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Florida, which together hold82 of the South’s 160 electoral votes. A combination of a growing black population, urban expansion, oceanfront development and in-migration from other regions has opened up increasing opportunities for Democrats in those states.
“Georgia is an achievable target for Democrats in 2016,” said Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, a frequent Obama surrogate during the campaign. “What you’re going to see is the Democratic Party making a drive through the geography from Virginia to Florida.”
This may be the product of wishful thinking. The reason given for the surge in Democratic votes was that the black population of the coastal states has grown at a faster rate than whites. Clearly, a white Democratic candidate will not get the level of support in raw numbers or even percentage as that given to Barack Obama.
But while Atlantic southern coastal states might be changing, making them more Democrat-friendly, what’s happening along the Gulf Coast in Texas, and to some extent Louisiana, should also concern GOP strategists looking at the big picture. Immigrants from the north as well as a burgeoning Hispanic population might make both of those states more competitive in the near future. Losing Texas to Democrats would doom the GOP in national elections for the foreseeable future, unless a way can be found to begin to cut into support for Democrats among Hispanics.
It may be coincidence that Democrats are strongest in states that border on large bodies of water. But whether it’s something in the drinking water or a state of mind, or perhaps the kind of voter attracted to living near water, the GOP better solve the puzzle soon or risk becoming irrelevant.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Consider that the true bastion of Democratic Party strength is large cities. You can almost graph out population density in the USA by plotting voting percentages of R vs. D. It is also an historical artifact that the largest cities are near water, because when the cities were being founded water transport was a key ingredient to success.
Agreed. It’s the city culture, not the water.
Annoyingly, I think you’re right. a well chosen nickname, sir!
other disturbing trends:
Romney won all states with a direction in them, north and south carolina and dakota and west virginia.
Okay, a serious one:
Democrats have just 55 percent of the Senate voting power, but 60 percent of the people voted for those 55 senators. that’s not right. Small states are overrepresented in the most powerful chamber, and that’s not right. If that was weighted by population, then Repubs wouldn’t have had the filibuster power and we’ve would have had a lot more jobs.
It’s not justifiable that half a million Wyomingians have the same Senate voting power as 38 millions Californians
It’s extremely justifiable, else no Republic. It didn’t take Einstein for Delaware or, say, New Hampshire to figure out that the last significant say they would ever have in their own affairs would be signing on to a strictly proportional system of representation. “Well, look–Massachusetts and Virginia have won *again*. Who figured that would happen?”
I understand 30% of the Democratic caucus now comes from California and New York. Just sayin’
Since it takes 3/4 to change the social compact, and since we already see what the Juicebox Mafia of the Left does with no power, much less majority power in the future, my feeling is that when Wyomingians consider your urgent plea to change the system, “pound sand” might be the response you get back. So by all jeans try. You and yours might yet be able to hang those you so earnestly desire to so do, but the days of folks helping you out by putting their own heads in the noose, awed by your brilliance, are drawing to a close.
Oh, the values behind those supporting the GOP will never become irrelevent. If they but resolve that they shall not become so, and then do what is needed to so insure.
As for the Hispanic vote, it is a vote. We shall see what more, if anything, lies behind it.
Oh, and as far as the map—this is the descendents of pre-Civil War America (Anglo-Celt, German, Dutch, minus those who went to the West Coast and then emigrated from there (i.e., Colorado)), versus everyone else–the descendents of the Southern European immigrants, the African slaves, and the Latino border-crossers plus New Mexico. Cuban-Americans are in a unique situation.
I support partition if things are not brought to a head, and no, Ken Burns, it is not because of racism. it is because you offer me nothing but subservience and pariah status.
Another patriot, who seeks to destroy his country
No, just your dream one.
I think you were supposed to put “patriot” in quotation marks.
And don’t ever forget this–the original Patriots were so proud of their English heritage of liberty, that when they felt forced to choose, they chose being English over being ruled by English. In the process of doing so, they became Americans. Now, I myself am so proud of my American hetitage of….
As to what you may consider yourself, or be proud of, I have neither clue nor care.
To wrap up my little solilioquy–the United States was able to graft the cultures of Southern Europe onto the basic midwestern character of the United States-but shared effort in World War II helped.
Now, it is the “midwestern culture”, the pragmatic American, who must assimilate, to the world of “diversity” and theory trumping all. Nuts to that. Partition. Or fight. But not surrender
I have no problem what heritage someone might come from, but by God, this will be the land of the pragmatic, practical, industrious, independent-minded, mainly self-reliant “Midwesterner”–whatever his skin– and that is all there is to it.
Partition? You already lost, sir. Both the war, and the present day difference of opinion.
And sure, we’ll gladly kick you… part ways with you, but only if you give us the urban areas, like New Orleans and Atlanta, and regions like them. Austin. With the red states, we’ll balance budget EASILY.
Seriously, the south can’t stand on it’s own. This why you lost the war. It’s not that you’re too small. It’s that you’ve come to believe your own snake oil. Which is sad, I know, but more for us, because we end up footing the bill for a bunch of proud ignramuses. Not you, of course! The OTHERS, to be sure.
As a practical matter, judging potential strengths by comparison to events from 150 years ago is a…dicey proposition. Puts a new spin on the phrase “every military prepares to fight the last war”. Or, in other words, all pointing to the Civil War proves is that the South could not defeat the North, 1861-1865. which I would not disagree with you about. As long as the North maintained its will, the South eventually loses, especially once the Grant-Sherman “raiding” strategy is introduced.
And you might want to think about that for a moment. If the North had lost its will….
As far as the urban areas–I would want none unwilling. That is why it is “partition”, and not secession. A vote by neighborhood by neighborhood, zip code by zip code. A life lived under the scorn of the Juicebox Mafia (who is the designated Emanuel Goldstein this week, anyway?), or a life of liberty. I am under no illusions of mass defections at this point in time nor is this my number one answer/preference. Plus, we are a few years premature. Say a decade. But scoff at your peril. Of course, when scoffing is one’s best stock in trade, I understand the difficulty in refraining.
I bet you that a spilt-off Midwest, West, and South could be *quite* economically viable. If nothing else, they could sell water to your urban areas (unless you intend to be some kind of imperial power, turning your back on every thing ever said by the Left about the bad old Western colonialists…). Mind you, they would be no Detroit, and might not have the fiscal solvency of California, but…they could probably hang in there at least as well as those two. Even Mississippi and Alabama, given who would most likely stay with the current government. And you never know what may come down the pike to cause economic conditions to perk up.
I wish you a good day, sir.
As an addendum–I’m sure another decade of seeing prosperity lost via being unable to develop local natural resources, with increasing areas of their states rendered off-limits to them by distant Washingtonians who are pleased at the ecological purity of the idea of vast nature preserves that no one can visit, will do more to drive the West into “my” arms than anything I could ever do. As far as the Midwest–Paul Krugman telling Kansas it should go pound sand should give enough proof that they are not loved by the Eastetn establishment. The two responses (yours, and below) here are certainly enough proof.
Partition a fantasy? Hardly, sir. You people, in your arrogance and conceit, will make it a certainty one day, if you continue as you have long enough and no one else be able to right the ship. And since you will…
Well said
As an academic exercise, this is fun…
Does this mean that those seceding areas in turn could keep the red counties located in the nominally blue states while the blue states got the urban areas?
Ya might wanna think carefully and check the county by county election results map before answering…(hint, it’s a sea of red with spots of blue).
Actually, I LIKE this kind of trade off!
Of course, if that DID happen, then the red states would get seriously wealthy when the cities got hungry.
As for cities and urban areas splitting off from states, keep in mind the following:
The federal government came into existence because the 13 original sovereign states CEDED certain powers to a central federal government.
Those states could not cede power they did not have, therefore those states inherently had those powers prior to the Constitutional Convention – secession being one of them.
Those state legislatures obviously assumed they had the legitimate power of secession – after all, they had just seceded from the British Empire!
Within the areas of power and authority ceded by the states to the federal government, the federal government became the supreme authority and the federal will supercedes the state will in certain areas – but only within those areas of specified powers granted to the federal government under the Constitution.
The power of secession was apparently NOT ceded to the federal government as evidenced by both New York and Rhode Island constitutions of the period that specifically reserved the right to secede. The power to secede does not appear to have been questioned at the time – only the wisdom of it.
Anyway, the cities within those same states are subordinate to the states.
The only power they have is the power the states grant them – and I’m pretty sure the states have not yet ceded the power of secession to the various states and counties that comprise the states in total.
As such, the states remain the primary authority that retains the power of secession – not cities.
Of course, Lincoln’s acceptance of West Virginia’s secession from Virginia (he was quite flexible on the subject when it suited him) as a precedent could be problematic for your position IF those red counties decided to secede from the blue states during any secession activities.
Nice try though.
Bullshite. If the GOP valued the “pragmatic, industrious, practical and independent minded,” you wouldn’t keep supporting these silver spoon legacy babies/heirs candidates, who are too cowardly to fight for their country and who’ve been gifted with millions and some add-on business to run into the ground at 21. This last silver spoon spoiled brat Romney actually had a grandpa who avoided U.S. polygamy laws by fleeing to Mexico to keep 5 wives and when war broke out there, brought all 75 kids and 5 wives back and received U.S. welfare. Somehow THAT you view as industrious and independent minded? Please, you republican wingnuts are all hypocrite bigots. You forget that the Midwest and the south are the least educated, most religious, and most impoverished, and they’re almost always red. Get your own sad state of affairs in order, or take up ‘partition’ but , leave the land behind to the people that worked it for 400 years, while you were waiting to take the boat over here.
Not a fan, I take it.
Pray tell, what second-tier school did you graduate from? One can tell from the airs you put on.
We The Elite People of culture of corruption in Washington DC(GOP/RNC) are going to fix something? WHAT? Pray tell, can they fix? Fur Christ sakes!!! They’ve botched everything they’ve put their hands into/onto. They’ve given us newspeak: words like “sequester,” “fiscal cliff,” “kick-the-can-down-the-road” to name a few. All this culminating in an approval rating somewhere in the low 20%tile. This is an “F” in anybody’s lingo. Would anyone hire an “F” student to be in charge of any enterprise, anywhere in the world??? Don’t think so!!!! Why put them in charge of selecting precint candidates for any office, let alone national offices???HUH??? They’re “F” students.
Why is this important, one asks? Because precinct involvement is the back-bone and only future available to rignt-of-center american voters (who were largely absent in 2012′s Presidential Elections). Whites=down from 2008, Blacks=almost 90%, Hispanics=70%+ and Asians= 30 to 40% increase(largest, single percentage-wise, catagory).
What about the “sub-prime” mess that got We The People into this mess anyways? And G.W. Bush’s extending this practice to every low income region of the continental USA? “F” students, all!!!! Clearly, a Progressive agenda…not much different than Romney’s or McCains!!!
The GOP/RNC is going to fix this? Not on your sweet patootie, it’s not. Go back to your Washington DC $174,000/year do nuttin’ jobs in culture of corruption…and make those crony-capitalist, sweet-heart deals instead. After all, that’s what US House of Representatives and Senate are experts at:insider trading, increasing their benefits and salaries as well as “taking care of their constituencies with ‘bringing-the-bacon-home.’” If the GOP/RNC don’t abandon this swing to a center-left agenda…their numbers are destined to be reduced in both US House and US Senate.
USHouse of Representatives? HAH! USSenate???A pipe dream!! Stay away from precints and State offices. Mind the 10th amendment…stay clear!!Please.Pray.Amen.Center-right will insure America follows Our Founding Fathers intent and ideals.
– fluoride.
Chlorine.
It’s called “cosmopolitanism”.
When I look at that map, what jumps out at me is that the states that are most insular, most inward-looking, have the least contact with other cultures and ideologies, are red. And that’s saying something – in all my travels, world wide, I have never found as insular a group as my fellow Americans (to be fair, I haven’t been to North Korea or Iran – I’m well-travelled, not stupid).
The blue states’ populations are more likely to have dealt with unusual cultures, ethnicities and ideologies. And to have put into practice the wholly American ideology of tolerance of difference and equal treatment of the different – and if you believe in that, in allowing equality and difference, and in getting the same from government, you vote Democrat.
That will be a very bitter pill for many Republicans, I know. Particularly those, like me, who largely agree with basic concepts of financial regularity and sensibility (balanced budgets, for instance), small government and government out of people’s lives as much as possible.
But the modern Republican Party is also the party that wants to restrict human rights and privileges in favour of restrictions based on purely biblical argumants (and often rather poor ones at that). That gets all up in arms when Atheists or Muslims or Taoists or anyone not Protestant Christian has the temerity to require government to actually obey the 1st Amendment. That vociferously denounces attempts to break glass ceilings and get equal pay for equal work.
I’m painting with a broad brush here, and I know that. But the moderate Republicans are not the ones at the forefront of the media, either mainstream or alternative. And they’re not the ones that get put forward as the candidates – well, maybe Romney was, I don’t know, I still don’t know what he stood for.
What we need is a center-right party that can live with difference while promoting conservative economics. But as long as we have far-right religious and cultural conservatives in charge, that won’t be the Republican Party.
I’d say your observations are well off the mark.
First of all, even within the so called red states you have quite a diverse group of cultures. Everything from midwestern ‘cowboys’ to Cajun’s in Louisiana, to Cuban immigrants in Florida, to the descendents of English/Scotch/Irish who settled from the coast to the mountains from Virginia down to Alabama.
Then you have quite an influx of immigrants in the past couple of decades, like the massive tide of Mexican migrant farm labor.
Personally, I’m not too impressed by their culture. Call me old fashioned but I just ain’t gonna approve of brothels exploiting minors shipped in from Mexico and the drug/crime that I have seen following them.
Still, you are certainly entitled to your opinion….
Well, thank you for your civility. Disagreement on these issues so often becomes unpleasent screaming matches.
You’re right that the Red states contain many cultures. But I would point out that they are cultures that we are, by and large, accustomed to dealing with. Even Mexican/Hispanic/Central American cultures, we’ve been encountering an dealing with for more than a century.
They’ve had that long to merge into our lexicon of the “normal”. But most of the “new” cultures are in the blue states – Asian, Midle Eastern, African – and have not been assimilated into the “normal”.
I have no problem being civil as long as the other party remains so as well.
Anyway, a small percentage of the population being immigrant is not a problem generally as there will be greater pressure to conform to the society they have immersed themselves within.
You maintain that melting pot as a smaller percentage is immersed into a larger body.
You look at asians, for instance, and those who’s families have been here for a couple or more generations have assimilated well and they are a relatively small percentage of the overall population in most areas.
Not so with the Mexicans.
So many of them have poured in over the past few decades that they have not seen fit to assimilate and have created their own enclaves within our society.
This is not good. The melting pot needs to melt, not have lumps in it.
It encourages them to see themselves as remaining natives of their homelands and see no necessity to learn our language or adhere to our views of society – and therein lies the problem.
The examples I gave of crime are very real. They literally had opened a brothel in a town nearby (interestingly enough, in the area predominantly populated by transplants from the north) that catered to mexican migrant construction workers. It was apparently being run by an international mexican based gang. The underage girls they were using in this brothel had been smuggled into the country thinking they were going to get jobs doing things like housekeeping in hotels or such.
Instead, these underage girls found themselves being used as prostitutes against their will.
In another incident, there was a traffic accident on the interstate. The driver was a drunk, illegal immigrant, using falsified identification, who had stolen the SUV and rammed it into a local resident driving along minding their own business.
I once saw a car rear end another at a stop light and the driver then took off. We got the license plate number, photo of the vehicle, and description of the vehicle and driver, and hung around for the cops and gave them the information.
They checked it and informed the victim, a local resident (with an infant in the back seat), that the vehicle in question was addressed at an area known for illegal immigrants and the odds of getting any restitution were slim. If they could even verify who it was and went after them, they would just hightail it to mexico. The cop clearly didn’t think the identification on the registration was legit.
Don’t even get me started on the graffiti.
These are not signs of poor humble immigrants struggling to become Americans and do jobs that Americans won’t do.
There’s very little on that which I would disagree with you on. Such criminal acts should not be tolerated, and illegal immigrants should be returned to their state of origin – I might make an exception for those fleeing in honest fear for their lives, but for almost nothing else.
However, such actions are, unfortunately, tainting in many eyes the legal, law abiding immigrants, both from the litino states and elsewhere in the world.
Still, we are getting off my point, which is that the blue states appear to be the ones more affected by immigrants and visitors from countries we haven’t previously had many from. This, in turn, creates a greater tolerance for difference – which, come to that, would then attract more of the different. Like it or not, the Republican Party of the late 20th and early 21st century is looked upon, rightly or wrongly, as being composed primarily of white christians, while the Dems hold everyone else.
It’s a pain in the neck for people like me. I support the Republcan position, by and large, on finance, but the Dems on social issues. If we could get a Republican candidate who could push the financial aspects without looking to drive our society back into the 1950′s, I think he’d do very well (but probably couldn’t get the party nomination…)
it’s not the water.
Just stop nominating anyone from Massachusetts.
Although, the GOP could get lucky if the dems nominate Deval Patrick in 2016…