So, West Virginians prefer a phony Mormon multimillionaire to Obama.
And they wonder why their state is considered a joke .
how did Dukakis win west Virginia?
Back then they voted based on their economic interests, not on who got the endorsement of NRA and Right to Life.
If upper-middle class voted according to their economic interests, Republicans would storm through suburbs like Papa Bush did, so the tradeoff has obviously benefited the Democrats.
But it gets more complicated. Suburbia has become legitimately urban as it loses whatever rural character it once had. When Suburbia was new, Republicans could reliably win the votes of midde-class suburbanites with the appeal that they were (1) good for the firms that middle-class people worked for, (2) likely to reduce taxes, (3) were willing to risk recessions to stop inflation and thus friends of savers, (4) friendly to small business, (5) largely white, and (6) well-suited to the image of self-reliance that used to be a middle-class trait.
The idyllic image of Suburbia is no more. It is now legitimately urban, with urban problems: pollution, crime, drugs, traffic jams, and deteriorating infrastructure. Suburbia remains largely middle-class, but the middle class no longer trusts the bosses as it used to. It used to have much of its wealth in savings accounts vulnerable to inflation; pressure on wages (due to collaboration between the GOP and Big Business) has squeezed incomes enough that saving is now a heroic activity than a sign of restraint. The middle class is often heavily in debt for mortgage and auto loans among the more prudent and older ones -- but also for student loans that have allowed them to grasp onto or hold onto the middle class status and jobs that used to be easier to get. It is now concerned with public services from police protection to public schools. It depends heavily upon state universities for schooling and wants them funded. Small business? Giant corporations in manufacturing, finance, fast food and chain restaurants, and box stores have crowded out many of the arch-conservative entrepreneurs.
The GOP has heavily relied upon promises of tax cuts, but as commutes get longer and routes get more congested, the tax cuts become a poor substitute for good roads. Suburbia has also become less lily-white than it once was. White suburbanites are becoming less scared of non-whites than they used to be.
One day I was going through satellite radio and I noticed, along with the ideological content, a stark difference between "America Left" (identity obvious) and "Patriot Radio" (right). On America Left I heard several ads for credit-relief entities. Ads on Patriot Radio, in contrast, were pushing gold. Credit relief is, of course, for people heavily in debt. Gold is for people afraid of a devalued currency. The pattern is hardly new. Creditors have tended toward the Right (this pattern goes back at least to the 18th century in America if not elsewhere); debtors who have no vested interest in the 'sanctity' of the value of money tend toward the Left.
