How is the liberalism of, say, Oregon, different from the liberalism of Massachusetts? Seems like Massachusetts is ‘traditional’ liberals while Oregon is more libertarian and has a significant number of voters who favor legalized marijuana and legal euthanasia, etc.?
And how is the conservatism of Alabama different from that of Oklahoma, Montana or Alaska? Again it seems that the further west a state is, the more libertarian they are? And are states (whether liberal or conservative) more and more irreligious the further north they are located?
Iowa and New Hampshire have been studied to death because of their importance in both parties’ selection process.
Conservatives in Iowa tend to lean more toward social conservatism while conservatives in New Hampshire lean more to fiscal conservatism. Similarly, liberals in Iowa tend to be more traditional bread and butter economic liberals as opposed to social issues or foreign policy.
According to the Mercatus Center rankings, North Dakota and South Dakota are the two most free states in 2013. However, it is certainly not the case that all red states were more free than blue states. Some red states, such as Mississippi, Kansas, and West Virginia, rank very poorly. Overall, red stats in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions clearly do better, on average, than those in the South.
LOL, freedom as defined by the Koch brothers
Massachusetts is rather urban; Oregon is more rural and conservative outside of Portland and Eugene. California also has large conservative areas that just don’t have large populations (except for certain areas like San Diego).
Maybe.
Montana has gone for Republican presidential candidates in recent elections, but has a Democratic executive and one of each for US Senate representation. The state favors libertarian-leaning people from either party.
Kind of, although it seems you are contrasting the West with New England and the conservative South. NH and VT (and ME?) have strong libertarian streaks, even if they prefer different parties.
More or less. And of course excepting Utah.
My two cents:
Red States:
Those in the deep south became Republican as part of Nixon’s southern strategy after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. They hate the federal government largely because of integration. Some of the Bible Belt issues- abortion, gay marriage drive their votes.
Bible Belters are driven by opposition to abortion, gay rights, and non-traditional gender roles. They are deathly afraid of non-Christians and non-whites. They want the return to the good old days of segregation and prayer in schools and see Democrats as a threat to their Christianity.
Westerners love their guns. Every time Diane Feinstein farts, they make a run to the ammo store. Since much of their land is federally owned, they see the federal government as a monster.
Blue States:
New England and the Rust Belts are the traditional New Dealers, union members, and minorities. Being more urban, they see and use government services in mass transportation and urban infrastructure and do not see government as the enemy.
West Coasters are also pretty culturally diverse with large Asian and Hispanic populations. They are very eco-conscious and untrusting of big corporations.
I don’t see libertarianism as a factor in either camp. It is and always will be a fringe element of the Republican Party.
I think guns are not so much a western issue as a rural issue (though many western states are highly rural). Rural folks in the eastern states also tend to be pretty strongly pro-gun.
Democrats in Rocky Mountain states are much more pro-gun than Democrats on either Coast.
This is undoubtedly true, it is more of a rural-urban thing in my view. I’m just saying that if you’re a Republican in a western state, guns are further up on your list of worries than say abortion whereas Bible Belters would say the opposite.
For that matter, many Democrats in Rocky Mountain states are more pro-gun than many Republicans on the coasts.
How do blue states which are monochrome like Vermont compare to states that are blue due to minorities like Illinois or colorado?
Also what about rural vs urban? Maine is very rural and is fairly blue, but Pennsylvania is only blue because of urban areas.
Then you have places like California which is blue because of three large cities, but the cities are different culturally.
A lot of it is. See this 2008 “red-blue” election map broken down by county. The only solid-red areas are rural, the only solid-blue areas are urban.
I’m always entertained by the way that certain people try to make every thread about the Koch brothers even when they’re totally unrelated to the topic, but this is surely the most extreme example I’ve yet seen.
So Charles Koch being a member of the Board of Directors of the Mercatus Center is your idea of “totally unrelated”? Interesting.
Illinois generally gets classified as a blue state, but it’s not as simple as “due to minorities”.
Voting in Illinois often comes down to, “how does Cook County vote, versus the rest of the state?”, and that very typically plays out in a “Cook votes Democratic, the suburbs and Downstate vote Republican” dynamic.
But, this is not only because Cook County has a (fairly) large minority population: Cook County is still 55% white (and 25% black, as well as 24% Hispanic). The Democratic machine dominates politics in Cook County, and that machine has traditionally been led by white men, including both Mayor Daleys.
The power of that machine extends to the state legislature, where Michael Madigan (from Chicago) has been Speaker of the House for all but two of the past 32 years (and his daughter Lisa is the Illinois Attorney General).
Illinois has had both Republican and Democratic governors over time, as well as often having both Republican and Democratic US Senators. However, it’s pretty clear that it’s Madigan and the Democratic machine which really hold the power in the state – as our new Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, has quickly discovered (Rauner and the Democrats are in a stalemate over the state budget crisis).
OK, that was too long an explanation. In short: Illinois is “blue”(ish) in large part because the Cook County political machine happens to identify itself as Democrat.
Democrats in Rocky Mountain states are much more pro-gun than *Republicans *on either Coast. Unless Christie is running for President.
Yes, obviously Charles Koch being a member of the Board of Directors of the Mercatus Center is totally unrelated to a thread about the differences between various red states and between various blue states.
Now if someone started a thread titled, “Who is on the Board of Directors of the Mercatus Center”, then it would be relevant.
I think you are missing that your original snark was directed at someone challenging the impartiality of a study from Mercatus Center. You know the one that you quoted as a cite in this thread.
Do you seriously not see why a study from an organization with one of Koch brothers in the freaking Board of Directors gets a sideways look?
Cause I gotta tell, to most of us that does not meet the bar for “totally unrelated”.
If you have some evidence that anything the Mercatus Center said was not true, I’m happy to look at your evidence. Ignoring the content of a claim while focusing on the person making the claim is a logical fallacy, the ad hominem fallacy, to be exact. (I’m not sure if there’s a name for the fallacy ignoring both the claim and the person making the claim while focusing on a member of the board of directors. Perhaps we should call that the ad kochum fallacy.)
Oh, I will surely admit that I personally have no data or cite to challenge the study itself, but what I was challenging was your chastisement of another poster when they brought up the Koch Brothers. You said that the reference to the Koch brothers was “totally unrelated to the study”. I’m simply challenging you on the accuracy of that statement. You can say the relationship doesn’t matter, and you may be right, but you cannot say there is not a relationship.