Maryland

[dazzleman]

Why did Maryland go Republican in 1988?  Was it the Willie Horton factor, that Willie Horton had been released from a jail in Massuchusetts on an unsupervised furlough and traveled to Maryland and raped a woman?

That's the only thing I can think of, as other heavily Democratic states like New York and Massachusetts went back to the Democrats that year after voting Republican in the previous two elections.

[dazzleman]

I think once Slick Willie got his hand's on the presidency and other factor's changed Maryland. 

But Maryland was one of only six states that voted for Carter in 1980.  Maryland was a heavily Democratic state long before Slick Willie.

[dazzleman]

But it really started getting Democratic under Slick Willie.

I agree that Slick Willie made a number of states that were Democratic-leaning states much more heavily Democratic, while ultimately at the same time pushing Republican-leaning states more heavily Republican. 

I believe that Slick Willie is really the author of our current red state-blue state divide, something that was never talked about before 2000.  He made it socially acceptable for sophistocated suburbanites to be Democratic, but at the same time turned more traditional values oriented-voters off to the Democratic party during his second term in particular.

That still doesn't explain why Maryland went Republican in 1988.  If you look at the 1984 results, Maryland had the second-lowest percentage of the vote for Reagan of the states that Reagan carried (Massachusetts was the lowest of the states that Reagan carried).  New York had a higher percentage of the vote for Reagan than Maryland did in 1984.

And yet by 1988, New York flipped to Dukakis, by a fairly small margin, and Maryland voted Republican.  Several other relatively weak Reagan states (Iowa, Hawaii, Massachusetts, to name a few) flipped to Dukakis, but Maryland was not one of them.

I think it may have been anger over the furlough of Willie Horton that did it, but I'm wondering if anybody else shares this same opinion.

[dazzleman]

I think it had more to do with anything else that the Dukakis' campaign had a really bad GOTV effort in the urban cities and that black people were not enthusiastic about his campaign.

Turnout was down in primarily black PG County from 1984, way down in Baltimore City from 1984 and Bush 41 performed well enough in Baltimore County (winning 57%-42%) to carry the state.  Also, during this period Montgomery County was primarily a swing county as the Northeastern suburbs had not made the flip to the Democrats as they would in 1992.  Bush 41 only lost it by 3%.  To put this in comparison, Bush 43 in 2004 lost it by 33%.

Also, remember 1988 was the year Jesse Jackson performed very well in the Democratic primaries and was a major factor till the end.  Black apathy could explained on that count as well.

However, it is strange that Dukakis didn't manage to win the state because he was of Greek ancestry and there are many Greeks in the Baltimore area (one of the things that got Spiro Agnew elected Gov.)

These are all valid points, but I wonder why they didn't seem to apply to states like New York, where Reagan performed better than Maryland in 1984.

Maybe you hit on something with black apathy.  Maryland has a higher percentage of blacks than New York, and maybe black apathy hit the Democrats harder in Maryland because of that larger share of the population.

What you said about the suburbs is true throughout the northeast.  In 1988, those suburbs were still voting Republican, for the most part.

[dazzleman]

[

Of course, many of the voters Mondale got out ended up voting for Reagan...

Thanks for a good laugh...

[dazzleman]

wow, good analysis Sam Spade, dazzleman, Kevin

thanks man..Sam Spade really provided the answer to my question.

[dazzleman]

I'm just hoping Dems don't suffer in '06 due to black apathy if the Cardin/Mfume primary gets nasty and Cardin wins.

Well if they do, it serves them right.  They've stoked the fires of racial resentment and grievance for so long that they've created a monster whereby, if a black candidate loses a primary, black voters take their ball and go home.  This is one of the pitfalls of relying so heavily on an inordinate share of the black vote.

Do you really think M'fume stands a chance of winning a statewide election?  That type of candidate is usually too much even for the latte liberals, who either stay home or vote Republican in that case.

[dazzleman]

I'm just hoping Dems don't suffer in '06 due to black apathy if the Cardin/Mfume primary gets nasty and Cardin wins.

I can see a situation like this happening in Philadelphia come 2007.  Say Jon Saidel or John Dougherty beats up on Chaka Fattah or Janine Blackwell.  Blacks might stay home and I hate to say it Frank Rizzo Jr. could emerge as victor. The name Rizzo if some may recall is quite a popular name in the white parts of Philadelphia. 

This type of thing is a big part of the reason the Democrats have lost the last 3 mayoral elections in New York, and appear likely to lose their fourth straight one this year.

In my opinion, it serves them right.  Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[dazzleman]

what makes this state so liberal?

It isn't.

bandit, you'd consider SanFancisco to be far-right conservative.

[dazzleman]

I'm a Jon Saidel supporter and he is in my sig on the bottom left.  He looks kinda nerdy and has a hairpiece, but is a great man.  I know a lot of white Dems are supporting Johnny Doc because of the unions and the black Dems will be supporting either Fattah or Blackwell.  Michael Nutter could also be in the mix and might do well with conservative Dems both black AND white.  I would like to support an African American at some point but the field of candidates among them is not too impressive.  Nutter is quite a DINO.  The situation here is going to be very hairy. 

It's a shame that race and poltics comes into play so much, but it does.  I hate to say that Republicans are experts at picking African American candidates for various offices and can use it very well in our faces "see, see we pick minorities as well."  Other than Barack Obama or Harold Ford, there are slim pickings on the Dems side.  It seems the black face of our party is Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters and that could be a difficult thing to overcome for us.

The problem is that the Democrats have used the politics of resentment and racial grievance to hang on to large percentages of the black vote.  But now it's considered racist to run a primary campaign against a black candidate, and blacks won't support a white Democrat who beats a black Democrat in the primary.

This racial divide has really hurt the Democratic party in New York City.  Imagine a city as Democratic as New York and Democrats haven't elected a mayor since 1989.

You're right about the public face of the Democrats.  Many of the blacks in the Democratic party are a very sorry lot.  Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters are very good examples.  People like this could never win an election outside of heavily black inner city neighborhoods.  They're poison for anybody else, and their racial dividers.

It's interesting to watch this problem in New York, and now hear about it in Maryland and Philadelphia.  It seems that blacks are going to start demanding more from Democrats in return for 90% of their vote, and Democrats are not going to be able to give it to them without losing much of the white support that they have left.  That is what has happened in the New York mayoral races.

[dazzleman]

This is why I was surprised Philadelphia voted 81% for Kerry especially after last year's racially divisive mayoral election which the white neighborhoods voted overwhelmingly for Republican Sam Katz albeit the end result was 60-40 Street.  I knew when I was pulling for Katz I was going to vote for Howard Dean or whoever then next year.  Yeah I was a Deaniac for Katz.  When you have a mayor that says "the brothas and sistas are running this city, if you don't like it register Republican", I though the Dems were in deep sh!t here with the white voters.  I guarantee if Bush were replaced with McCain, McCain would have creamed Kerry in NE and South Philly.  I can also rest assure you that Philadelphia's Dem nominee will be African American and the GOP one will be Frank Rizzo Jr. 

The racial polarization issue doesn't seem to affect presidential voting the way it affects local voting, unless probably a serious black candidate was defeated in the primary.  Some people argue that Michael Dukakis' defeat of Jesse Jackson in 1988 caused a lack of enthusiasm for Dukakis among blacks that depressed his turnout.  This didn't happen in 2004 with Fat Al Sharpton, but then he didn't turn out to be a serious candidate the way Jackson was, at least in the Democratic primaries.

[dazzleman]

Maryland is yet another state living under unjust urban rule.

I would have to agree with you, Philip, though there's no solution.

[dazzleman]

Only Hillary had the balls to call bullsh**t on that.

Well, you're right about one thing.  She sure has balls, literally.

Now we could discuss why the upstate economy is so depressed, but that would be pointless.

[dazzleman]

Only Hillary had the balls to call bullsh**t on that.

Well, you're right about one thing.  She sure has balls, literally.

Now we could discuss why the upstate economy is so depressed, but that would be pointless.

The problem with upstate New York's economy is the same as the problems with most of the Rust Belt cities.  Heavy industry has fallen from grace.  Have you visited upstate New York, recently?  Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, are full of Old Economy industries that have been in decline due to competition from overseas and have had factories closed due to outsourcing (such as Carrier's air conditioning plant in Syracuse).  Though more and more high-tech industries have been appearing, such as Eastman Kodak and Xerox adding to their large operations in Rochester.  So it might get better eventually.  But for now most of the cities of upstate New York are very blue-collar.

Yes, I've been there lately. It never really recovered from the Bush I recession of '91.

Upstate's problems predate that recession.  It's a structural problem based on the fact that the New York city's dominance of the state imposes a high tax structure on the whole state, and makes it an uncompetitive place to do business.