Oregon Is Turning Republican

[Adlai Stevenson]

This has more to do with liberal Independents not alligning themselves with the Democrats more than naything else.  As long as Dems have the advantage among Indpendent voters at Election time (which they have, and recent elections show that advanatge is growing) it doesn't really matter.

Exactly.

Democrats are losing the rural working-class voterbase.  Morrow County, which voted 2-to-1 Bush, recently had a Democratic registration advantage.  The new guard that will keep the Dems in power in Oregon is an increasingly liberal independent constituency.  This is also true in Washington.

This also explains much of the suburban mid atlantic & northeast, such as Long Island (with the 04 9/11 factor being an exception).  While registration here has trended more & more Democratic,which explains part of it, the reason the shift has been as large as it has is Independents use to lean Republican in their voting, now they lean Democratic by a decent margin.

the 9/11 factor did not exist.

as lewis has explained, the 2004 returns in places like the long island were simply a correction from the skewed 2000 results.

Of course the '9/11 factor' existed - Bush did not make substantive gains in states like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island due to the fact that voters in these states were coming home to Southern-accented Republicanism and conservative policies. They were paying homage to his War On Terror and perceived tough stance on Terrorism and Homeland Security. 

[Adlai Stevenson]

That may well be the case but I couldn't care less if a load of bigoted Catholics felt that way.  Massachusetts is leading the way in America and they will come to accept it.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Why should anyone oppose gay marriage?  It seems paradoxical that the Republican party's record and the majority of Republicans believe in less goverment, i.e. less governmental interference in the lives of the people.  But social conservatives have now become social activists who will try to impose their moral values on to just normal people.  I think that the Same Sex Marriage Bans are appalling; in fact I cannot tolerate even discussion or debate of the issue.  So perhaps I am bigoted towards Catholics who oppose it but sorry its a non-issue for me, if you cannot see that then...

[Adlai Stevenson]

Why should anyone oppose gay marriage?  It seems paradoxical that the Republican party's record and the majority of Republicans believe in less goverment, i.e. less governmental interference in the lives of the people.  But social conservatives have now become social activists who will try to impose their moral values on to just normal people.  I think that the Same Sex Marriage Bans are appalling; in fact I cannot tolerate even discussion or debate of the issue.  So perhaps I am bigoted towards Catholics who oppose it but sorry its a non-issue for me, if you cannot see that then...

"Normal people?"

So by your definition, people who oppose gay marriage are not "normal people."  People who are in your words social conservatives and social activists are not "normal people."  So by extension, in your view, only people who do not oppose gay marriage are "normal people."

Many social activists espouse very liberal causes.  I would assume that you consider social activists espousing liberal causes to be "normal people," but, on the other hand, that you consider social activists espousing conservative causes not to be "normal people."

This to me this is extremely exclusionary and narrow minded. 
 

You seem to have mistaken me, perhaps quite deliberately and interpreted my post as you want to read it.  Normal people are for the most part, not interested in gay marriage; its a non-issue for a lot of younger Americans in any case.  Social conservative activists are clearly not representative of 'normal people' or average people in general.