Ethnic Politics

[TeePee4Prez]

I'm Irish Catholic (Catholic being on the bubble).  It seems younger, working Irish Catholics are Democratic and liberal yet it depends on older ones.  Staunch older, wealthier Catholics are strong conservative though.  I think the ethnic bloc voting has gone out the door.  It's a matter of secular vs. religious and how storngly do you feel.  However, I find older seniors are Democratic because they did not like Hoover.

[TeePee4Prez]

Well, I can only speak for my family. I have no Catholic ancestry, and it is predominantly Episcopalian, with some Unitarian, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian. All of my ancestors as far back as it is recorded were British or of British ancestry. My family voted Republican from the time of the party's founding, being abolitionist, until 1948, when my grandfather voted for Henry Wallace. Since then, we have supported the Democratic candidates. Why this is, I don't know why. But there was a seismic shift.

Heh. Right about the time Massachusetts turned from a safe republican to a safe democratic (safe isn't the word) state. Turned almost on a friggin dime.

I think a lot of that was the city's expansion into the suburbs.  This definitely holds true for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore-Washington.  This in turn made MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA(well getting there), DE, and MD pretty much Democratic.  Less than 20 years ago the NYC and Philly suburbs were staunchly Republican even more so than the South.  Because of rapid expansion with developments, townhomes, and Interstates, the Democrats have been gaining stength in and around big cities.  Who would have ever thought 20 years ago that Al Gore would win Montgomery and Delaware counties, PA by 10 points?  I'm not saying it's a dime in NYC or Philly, but these states have little chance of going back.

[TeePee4Prez]

How 'bout the following:

Scottish
Scots-Irish (Northern Ireland)
English
French
Polish
Welsh
Finnish
Greek
Russian

Scots/Scots-Irish- Strong Rep.  Mostly in South and conservative parts of PA.  Though some in WV are Dems.

English-  Hard to say.  New Englanders typically Dem.  Elsewhere typically Republican.

French-  Concentrated in Louisiana and a few plaes in New England.  Split in LA. Strong Dem in New England.

Welsh-  Settled in Democratic Northeast PA.  Leans Democratic.  In fact I'm 1/8 Welsh and my great-great grandfather was from coal country.

Finnish-  Uppper midwest.  Very liberal.  Strong Democratic

Greek-  East Coast and California.  Lean Democratic though some are very conservative.

Russian- see Greek

Polish-  see earlier post on Irish.  Settled in a lot of areas the Irish did and typically intermarry.  Leans Democratic, but some are staunch Catholic conservatives.

Russian Jewish-  Easier to call b/c I live near a lot.  Strong
Democratic.

[TeePee4Prez]

I would tend to assume all of these groups would lean Democrat, but I'm far from certain.
Poles might be mixed due to the fact most are staunch Catholics. Russians also might be fairly mixed as they're pretty conservative.

The distinctions in some of the groups mentioned are pretty blurry. If you are focussed on first generation immigrants then some of the categories make sense. As you move to successive generations, factors involving region, income and education begin to outweigh historical ethnicity. Americans of northern European descent are almost impossible to peg this way. The Reagan democrats were often those of southern and eastern European descent, and it was clear that they were much less driven by ethnicity than was previously believed.

Sadly still, Reagan screwed over labor big time.  Again, I tell my fellow white Reagan Democrats this, but they always give the standard "he cut taxes", "he's moral", "welfare queens", "deadbeats on welfare", "Section 8 favors those damn n-words" while the clothes on their backs and the educations they received were fought for by Democratic unions.  A lot of these Irish, Itialian, German, Polish whites (yes you knwo who you are) that reiterate this garbage need to get whacked on the back side of the head with a 2X4 then should have to be strapped to a chair and learn about their ethnic history and labor movements via a documentary for about 3 hours.    

[TeePee4Prez]

If you're from Philadelphia you know who I mean!!!!  Bridesburg, Mayfair, Port Richmond, Fishtown, etc.

[TeePee4Prez]

Well, I can only speak for my family. I have no Catholic ancestry, and it is predominantly Episcopalian, with some Unitarian, Congregationalist, and Presbyterian. All of my ancestors as far back as it is recorded were British or of British ancestry. My family voted Republican from the time of the party's founding, being abolitionist, until 1948, when my grandfather voted for Henry Wallace. Since then, we have supported the Democratic candidates. Why this is, I don't know why. But there was a seismic shift.

Heh. Right about the time Massachusetts turned from a safe republican to a safe democratic (safe isn't the word) state. Turned almost on a friggin dime.

I think a lot of that was the city's expansion into the suburbs.  This definitely holds true for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore-Washington.  This in turn made MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA(well getting there), DE, and MD pretty much Democratic.  Less than 20 years ago the NYC and Philly suburbs were staunchly Republican even more so than the South.  Because of rapid expansion with developments, townhomes, and Interstates, the Democrats have been gaining stength in and around big cities.  Who would have ever thought 20 years ago that Al Gore would win Montgomery and Delaware counties, PA by 10 points?  I'm not saying it's a dime in NYC or Philly, but these states have little chance of going back.

The other thing to consider is that really, we've only had one election where a 3rd party candidate didn't take an absolutely huge chunk of votes.

Nader did impact the election, but not nearly to the extent perot did.

So without a huge third party presence we have the 1988 Bush suburbs being taken by Gore in 2000. But the problem in each of these cases is this.

Are we seeing a R to D trend? or are the voters just rejecting a candidate they just flat out didn't like (Dukakis, W). You look at those counties now, and they still send huge republican majorities to the state house, generally vote for republicans for US house and US senate.

I think we might need a couple cycles (2004 won't count as much since if they didn't like W in 2000, chances are, they won't in 2004), before we can say the immediate suburbs are now swing or democratic.

I'm not implying it's solidly Democratic.  But since 1988, the Philly suburbs swung big time to the point Northeast Philly is looking conservative.