White suburbs

[TeePee4Prez]

1.  Abortion/Family Planning
2.  Gun Control
3.  Economics

Theories based on local observation:  These are of course general.

Most suburanites were once from somewhere in a major city or had family from "the old neighborhood".  They were mainly Reagan Democrats.  They saw their parents neighborhood decline and decided they didn't want to live there so they move the the suburbs and become Republicans.  After a while, they see how corrupt the local GOP is and the fact they have to pay for every little service, the national GOP is getting more conservative, and they realize their professional jobs aren't so secure.  Also in order to maintain their lifestyle, family planning enters as an issue and the Catholic church is seen as out of touch.  Over time these voters start drifting back to the Democrats.  My basis for comparison is mainly Montgomery and Bucks Counties.

The inverse is happening in the urban white North.  I don't know about NYC or Boston, but in Philly you hear a lot of white cops being shot by primarily black suspects.  Interesting to note the NE Philly shift from Kerry to McCain was slight due to the fact it has a more suburban feel, but South Philly went strongly towards McCain.  Now economically, people in these neighborhoods are in fact cops, firefighters, or in the trade unions.  For the most part they know they'll have a paycheck coming in next month.  This may sound callous, but this kinda gives them the "luxury" to worry about whether a black person moves in next to them over their wallets hence allows them to be bought in by some of their implied racial rhetoric.  This is why you're seeing a GOP swing.     

[TeePee4Prez]

The inverse is happening in the urban white North. 

Unless there has been a rapid population shift in the cities, it doesn't really look like much of a shift. Here is the Dem share in presidential voting in some "core" urban counties (are you claiming they are getting increasingly black so fast?)

Philadelphia, PA

1980 58.66%
1984 64.94%
1988 66.60%
1992 68.16%
1996 77.44%
2000 80.04%
2004 80.44%
2008 83.01%

New York, NY

1980 62.40%
1984 72.06%
1988 76.14%
1992 78.20%
1996 79.96%
2000 79.76%
2004 82.08%
2008 85.70%

Suffolk, MA

1980 52.46%
1984 62.27%
1988 64.02%
1992 60.62%
1996 73.01%
2000 71.38%
2004 75.88%
2008 77.49%

Suffolk county (Boston and a couple of suburubs) was 58% white in 2000, BTW. Doesn't seem like much of a shift to Republicans to me.

In the case of Philadelphia- a slight increase in black population and an influx of liberal whites closer to downtown, but the blue collar white, primarily Catholic, areas have actually trended GOP the past 2 cycles- slightly in the Northeast, strongly in South Philly.  If the economic crisis didn't set in, it could have been far worse for Obama.  Then again if Hillary Clinton were the nominee, McCain would have packed up out of PA a long time before Election Day.  I would do a division(precinct) analysis, but I don't have the time.

[TeePee4Prez]

Not sure how to vote in this poll, but overall the biggest issue is that the GOP has pandered to cultural groups that are repulsive to most white suburban Northerners, even many Republican white suburban Northerners.

The inverse is happening in the urban white North.  I don't know about NYC or Boston, but in Philly you hear a lot of white cops being shot by primarily black suspects.  Interesting to note the NE Philly shift from Kerry to McCain was slight due to the fact it has a more suburban feel, but South Philly went strongly towards McCain.  Now economically, people in these neighborhoods are in fact cops, firefighters, or in the trade unions.  For the most part they know they'll have a paycheck coming in next month.  This may sound callous, but this kinda gives them the "luxury" to worry about whether a black person moves in next to them over their wallets hence allows them to be bought in by some of their implied racial rhetoric.  This is why you're seeing a GOP swing.     

While you have more anecdotal evidence than I do, looking at the numbers, I don't see a sizeable Kerry-McCain swing in any broad area. Excluding Mass. (with lack of home state effect), not a single urban county swung GOP and only one urban CD (NY-9) swung GOP.

How do reactions to white cops being shot by blacks, hurt the Democratic party? Dems certainly don't advocate violence and are more supportive of social programs that will in the long-term reduce crime.

At a micro-level in Northeast and South Philly, there was a Kerry -> McCain swing and in fact it was far less than I anticipated.  Kerry won every Ward in the city while Obama lost South Philly's 26th Ward by 6, but Kerry won it by 4 for a 10 point swing.  There were reports of VERY nervous Democratic Ward leaders in primarily working class white Wards prior to the election.  One such Ward, the 55th, the Dem leader said he would have been lucky to pull 1/3 of the vote for Obama had it not been for the economic crisis.  There was even a very small phone poll taken amongst 3 of these Wards where Kerry got 50 votes to Bush's 30 about 4 months before the election and Obama only got 25 votes to McCain's 45 with 10 undecided in the poll.  I wouldn't doubt Hillary Clinton would have pulled extremely high numbers in many of these Wards while Obama only won them narrowly.

FTR I supported Joe Biden in the primary (write-in), but supported Obama when he was declared the winner.  Not to sound like Jack Murtha, but trust me, I took a lot of sh**t for it in the beginning.