ME-Pan Atlantic SMS: Collins leads by 43

[tpfkaw]

Name one palatable to ME voters that exists outside Collins.

Peter Cianchette

Who as a pro-choice Republican vs. pro-life Democrat John Baldacci produced this hilarious result in the 2002 gubernatorial election:

[tpfkaw]

I think those days are a thing of the past. Not necessarily pro-life Ds or pro-choice Rs, but when you could actually get a matchup for a major statewide election with that combo. These days, when the Republican is pro-choice, the Democrat almost certainly is as well (and vice versa).

Probably, there's been progressively more ideological sorting of the parties every decade.

Still, those elections where the candidates are running with the "wrong" parties are fun to look at.

A typical near-tie election in Massachusetts: 2010-Sen. Special, moderate conservative Republican Scott Brown beats liberal Democrat Martha Coakley 52-47.



Bizarro Massachusetts: 1990-Gov, moderate libertarianish Republican Bill Weld beats ultraconservative (except pro-single payer and anti-death penalty) Democrat John Silber 50-46:



Weld won Cambridge and Provincetown, either of which is the equivalent of a Republican winning Berkeley, CA.

[tpfkaw]

Weld won Cambridge and Provincetown, either of which is the equivalent of a Republican winning Berkeley, CA.

The thing is you went back 24 years. If you go back twice that, Berkeley was a Republican town. Berkeley mostly elected Republicans as mayors until the 1970 election.

Cambridge and Provincetown were as Democratic back then as they are today.

[tpfkaw]

My mistake. I had both maps open from this blog post and posted the wrong one.