Long term drift to the Democrats?

[JNB]

 As someone who just recently moved out of California and lives most of his life there, the reasons why California has become a Democratic leaning state have many reasons, not just increased Hispanic vote. For one, since about 1990, the state has experienced a large amount of white flight, especially from fomerly swing or even GOP leaning areas. In the 80s, in So Cal, the San Fernando Valley and the Long Beach areas used to have at least on the presidential and statewide level a GOP lean. The Westren and Southren Part of the Silicon Valley(Santa Clara county) also used to have a GOP lean while the Livermore-San Ramon-Walnut Creek corridor of the Bay Area(also called the tri valley area) used to be pretty solidly GOP. In all of these areas, the GOP vote was anchored by a combination of defense industry and high paying blue collar/industrial jobs, and as these jobs starting in 1990 to dry up, the workers moved elsewhere, replaced by a combination of Latino, Far Eastren and South Asian(India) immigratns and liberal whites from the Northeast US. All of these areas now solidly Democratic with the exception of the San Ramon area that merely leans Democratic.

   Also, the fomer GOP strongholds in Southren California, that gave a reliable 60% of the vote on the presidential and statewide levels, such as Orange County, the GOP fortress itself), San Diego County, Riverside County, San Bernadino County and Ventura county now at very best lean GOP, and give statewide canidates maybe 50% of the vote. If one looks at election maps dating back to the 88 presidential elections, the geographical pattern still is mostly the same, just the GOP counties are less Republican while the Democratic counties are quite a bit more Democratic.

[JNB]

 Man, forgive my grammar in the last post. To further the discussion, I read the book, "The emerging Democratic majority" and it makes more than a few wild assumptions. The first wild assumption is that it allows predicts that the white working class in future elections will shift to the left on cultural issues, and that observation flies in the face of reality. The Democrats have been very lucky that have as much of the white working class vote as they did in 2000, and that was a result of the ultra partisan AFL-CIO led by their boss Sweeney, Bush' own poor campaign in 2000 especially trying to sell the working class on why his tax cut that would go mostly for the rich at a time(of then) prosperity(The tax cut package hurt Bush far more than it helped him) and the last minuite DUI revelation that probably switched 2%+ of the vote in Midwestren swing states from Bush to Gore and depressed the vote of white Evangelical Christians. That said, the book does not take these factors into account.

  The second mistaken assumption of the book is that the Hispanic vote will become like the black vote and give the Democrats a overwhelming number of their votes. This is what the Democrats are depending on as their ace in the hole, but it seems that the GOP may be able to get 40% of the Hispanic vote nationally, especially as more liberal, 60s era Catholic clergy that push "peace and justice" issues retire.

  On culture war issues of race, guns and abortion, the Democrats have made about as many gains as they possibly can hope to make in trying to play up the left side of these issues. In the Northeastren Corridor states(MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA and I will throw in VT as well) along with the West Coast states of CA, WA and OR, the Democrats have 20 of 22 senate seats and have gained 20 house seats sinced the 94 election. It is at the point now that the issues such as guns and abortion are starting to do more harm than good for Democrats.

[JNB]

    The GOP has been hurt the most in older, upper middle class suburbs. The heavy union presence in your state, and in PA and WI has helped keep the white working class vote at play for Democrats when compared to other states. In Pittsburgh PA for example, working class suburbs that went heavily for Dukakis in 88 went for Bush(albiet by a smaller margin) in 2000. Again, most of the voters who take left leaning stands on social issues such as guns, abortion and race have allready made the jump to the Democratic party. The Democrats have done a great job in peeling away these voters, what the Democrats have to worry about is in the Midwest, a fairly large part of their base is still socially conservative white working class voters. Again, the Book, "The emerging Democratic majority" glosses over the effort the unions made in 2000 on behalf of Gore, the Bush DUI incident and the poor campaign on the part of Bush.

[JNB]

  There has been no sign that the border states have been moving away from Bush. If there was any sign, we would have seen it in the KY gov race and if the poor rural areas were moving away from Bush, there would have been some indications from the MS gov race.

[JNB]

 Realpolitik, the rural white areas will vote strongly GOP in most cases, in LA, to be blunt, many rural parish' that voted for Duke in 91 voted for Blanco last week, and we can guess why they didnt vote for Jindal, also is the Democratic presidential canidate going to be pro life, anti affirmative action and get a A+ rating from the NRA? Look, I can say that Arnolds win in CA in October was a signal of a new trend, but its not, as Arnolds liberal views on social issues are not anywhere near where Bush' views are. Same with all of the New England states that have Republican govrenors.

   As for KY, the numbers between the 2000 presidential election and 2003 Gov race were quite close, and Fletcher did very well in traditionally Democratic and very rural Westren KY.  As with LA, Flecther held many views that are a bit more conservative than the national Democratic party. Also the Appalacian parts of KY does not hold all that many votes, and it borders the most Democratic part of W VA.

I know you want the book emerging Democratic majority to be true, but face it, the research for that book was bad, and its conclusions are hardly based in fact.  To nym90, one striking stat from the 2000 election was that Bush had 57% of the white vote with only high school degrees. While many Republicans try to hold the line of the Wall Street Journal, that people switched to voting for the Republican party because of economic issues, the truth of the matter is that 3 social isues are what have given the GOP the nominal majority people see today. That is guns, race and abortion.

[JNB]

 Realpolitik, this probably explains why you do not understand why poor rural areas often vote Republican. I do not know how politics plays out in the UK, but in the US, what are termed "culture war" issues, meaning guns, abortion, etc., have taken a firm root in the American political landscape. Rural voters may not care for the Republican partys stand on economic issues, but as the Democratic party becomes further dominated by socially liberal educated professionals, rural voter continue to be even further alienated. The rural voters value gun ownership, and see any act to curb that as a threat, rural voters tend to be active Christians, and they see the multi culturalism the left pushes as a threat. So despite the fact that many of their economic intrests may be better served by Democrats, they vote Republican. California shows this split quite clearly. The Central valley and Sierra mountain counties are among the poorest in the state. Fresno county has a 10+ unemployment rate and among the highest poverty rates in the state, but it has bcome solidly Republican.