Long term drift to the Democrats?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well...yes but not because of that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Long Term from when? 1860? 1900? 1924? 1936? 1956? 1964? 1972? 1984? 1996? etc?

My guess next election:

GOP gain Hispanic votes, Dems gain in Appalachia.

Nice, safe bets

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Appalachia and other poor rural areas have been hit pretty hard by Bush's economic policies and by the downturn.

As a result I would expect to see swings to the Dems in all Appalachian states.

However I would also expect that as the Hispanic community gets richer they will trend GOP.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. Racial politics in MS make it a very bad indicator of trends in poor rural areas.
And if you quote MS, I will quote Lousiana.

2. Actually the much of the Appalachian part of KY swung towards the Democrats in 2003.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Also the Appalacian parts of KY voted much stronger Democrat in the 2003 Gov election than the 2000 Presidential election.

I realize that Gubernatorial and Presidential elections are not the same thing, but it's interesting none the less.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think what recent results seem to show is more economic voting in some states and more social voting in others.

Interesting.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've never read the book, and don't intend to.

I have an interest in Appalacia and don't care that sod all people live there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

"Sod All" as in "Not Many" not as a derogatory term. I like Appalachia, it resembles where I live quite a lot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I live in a poor rural area of the U.K with a history of Mining.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Canada moved to the right during the '90's but seems to be going the other way at the moment.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Actually the first was right, the second was only partly right

I made the mistake of assuming that the Democrats would actually have a check of which areas had done badly, economically, during W's first term...

Old, old thread though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

First person to make sense of that, wins a prize!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, I'm pretty sure it was me.
There's a very strong link between strongly Baptist counties and the size of the swing to Bush; Western KY is one of the most Baptist parts of the U.S, while the southern parts of the East KY coalfields (Harlan county etc) are heavily Baptist as well.
Harlan also has a lot of Pentecostalists (sidenote; the area in the U.K with the most Pentecostalists is the Yorkshire coalfield).