Liberal or Democratic?

[Gustaf]

Liberal

New York
Maine
Vermont
Connecticut
Illinois
California
Oregon
Hawaii
Massachusets

Democrat

Rhode Island
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Washington D.C.
Maryland
Delaware
Michigan
Minnesota
Wisconsin
Washington

A lot aren't that clear-cut though.

[Gustaf]

Argh, you bloody Pennsylvanians, do you have to turn every thread into a thread about Pennsylvania?

[Gustaf]

Considering that NY has elected Republicans for Mayor and Governor, I'd say it's more liberal than Democratic.

[Gustaf]

I stand by my opinion that if an area can't even field a Democratic candidate (Wasn't Bloomberg more or less unopposed?) it's not all that Democratic.

[Gustaf]

Bloomberg didn't run unopposed.  It was a landslide, yes (most of that comming from the fact that he's a billionaire), but the Democrats did have a candidate.

Was it a real candidate or was it like we could have said "Bush wasn't unopposed, the Democrats ran Kucinich?

A definition I've seen once is that if the loser gets less than 40% of the vote he's viewed as "token opposition". That might be a bit high, but if you get less than a third of the vote I don't thikn that's a serious candidacy.

[Gustaf]

I am aware of the kind of problems Democrats have in NYC and I also know that Democrats are heavily dominating. My point is that if a state is ready to vote for liberal Republicans, even by large majorities, that indicates to me that what they have against Republicans is their conservativeness, rather than their party. That is, they are more Liberal than Democratic.