It's NOT the South, stupid

[LiberteToujours]

We have to stop talking about this as north vs. south. It's urban vs. rural. The north just happens to have enough big cities to balance out the farms. This map clearly shows that all the urban areas went Kerry, even in the deep south. Alabama, Mississippi, Georgie, you name it. Look at the southern tip of Texas!

We have to stop the south-bashing. The few rural folk in Connecticut voted just as red as those in Texas. We need to communicate with them better and make them see that we are not what the Republicans portray us as.

[Doomsayer13]

1. middle america

if we win middle america back, we can win. The Democrats used to represent famers and rural poor folk.

[sunnybrook]

43. true, but the Democrats "used to"

represent the racists...that changed in the 60s and the South has been fading since then... Clinton is the exception, not the rule, to Candidates we've had. How well did Kerry (although he tried mightily), Dukakis and Mondale do?

[DaveinMD]

2. this map

shows why we are a minority party in congress.

[Tweed]

3. It's evangelical Christians

We need to educate them on the words of Christ. Christ preached social justice, helping the poor, feeding the hungry and avoiding war. That's NOT the ideals of the Republican party.

[JI7]

9. how about when they ask about issues like abortion and gay rights ?

[Tweed]

16. Depends on the candidate

I have no problem with running a candidate in a Southern or Midwestern state for a position like Treasurer, Secetary of State, County Chairman, etc. that is against both of those. Those positions don't come in contact with such issues during their job. If they ask about abortion, talk about how more abortions take place when Republicans are in office because the economy is so down and people become so desperate. Change the argument even.

Say that the states should decide on gay marriage. If it's a Southern state talk about the historic idea of state's rights. Support civil unions instead of gay marriage.

[The Flaming Red Head]

33. Tell them most gay people don't need abortions

fuck it. It was rigged. It was rigged. It was rigged. The south, the north, the east and west, the gays, minorities, women, youth, labor, and the poor people voted, they just didn't get their votes tabulated.

[texas is the reason]

49. ROFLMFAO!!!! great one!

[arewenotdemo]

13. Agree, but they need to understand that Christ

may not have walked on water...superstition ain't the way.

Gotta educate their kids. Teach them science and comparative religion.

[leftofthedial]

20. praise gawd

and hand me a viper

[sunnybrook]

41. the problem with educating evengelicals

I grew up in this extremist so called "religious" bullshit. They are very hard to educate because the teachings of the church leave no area for free thought. Everything is black and white there are no gray areas. And if you don't do a,b, and c you will BURN IN HELL. As a child when I questioned things in Sunday School class, such as an obvious biblical contradiction, you could see the teacher making up an answer that fit the ideology. I felt like my mind was the only place of freedom I had as a child and the church worked mightily to curtail that freedom. What I am saying is, I know there has to be a way, but it is difficult to reach people who have been brainwashed and think that YOU are the one who is the sinner, in denial, ignorant, etc... and they think that the big city people are stupid in a different way, they think they lack common sense....

[Tomee450]

57. So true.

We share a similar experience. It was always about God's punishment, never about his forgiveness, his mercy. It is very hard to talk to some fundamentalists.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

4. That CAN'T be this year's county map

it just can't be.

I was told TX was bluer than that! Hell, that shows TX being REDDER than it was in 2000!!!!!

WHAT THE FUCK?????

God I'm so fucking disgusted right now if that's this year's map.

Screw you bushies, screw you.

[LiberteToujours]

5. Unfortunately, it is

Though it doesn't look like it's all the way filled in, but I can't find a complete version.

[Eye and Monkey]

8. being colored "red" might actually mean "49% blue" -

but that doesn't show...

[sunnybrook]

44. good point

[Shakespeare]

56. True--we need that red/blue/PURPLE map that someone once posted

Anywhere the margin was just a few percent, the county was colored purple. The whole freakin' country looked like a big old grape.

[atre]

12. I spot an inaccuracy

A county in N.C. that went for Kerry is red. Go figure.

[Lex]

6. Exactly! My county in NC is *very liberal*

and diverse and goes BLUE on every election.

It is in the county where Duke University is located and NC Central University (historically black university).

[southlandshari]

7. kick

excellent - thank you for illustrating with objective fact the point which many of us have tried to make via subjective emotion throughout the day today!

[Momof1]

10. I just don't understand...is it Fox, gay marriage, or stem cell

research that has everyone screwed up in the head? Hey my county is red too. Kerry lost by 2,000 votes. Thank god for Philly & Pittsburgh that pulled the state...but look at that map!!! Is everyone fucking brain dead but us?

[Touchdown]

22. It's fear, hero worship and nationalism

They can be seductive, and few societies can resist fascism, because they don't know that's what it is. It never resembles itself twice.

[tjdee]

11. 2 things: Fuck that map, and thanks again to the rurals saving us from us!

1--I hate any red/blue map because it does not adequately portray that there are more PEOPLE in the blue areas. Sure there's voters in the red areas, but also a lot of cows and grass. There's a reason a huge state like Montana has about 3 (or whatever) electoral votes.
Those maps make me crazy, and IMO is psy-ops for Republicans.

2-On the Daily Show, Stephen Colbert thanked the places who have no terrorist targets and few gay folks--for pushing their opinion on those of us in states who actually HAVE them. NY and NJ voted for Kerry, but we are to understand that the rural states understand terrorism better than ground zero. Colbert thanked them for saving us from ourselves!

So I guess I'm agreeing with you??

[carpetbagger]

14. Uh, most of the southen tip of Texas is as rural as it gets.

Hundreds of miles of Mesquite and thorn scrub, 40 miles at a stretch without seeing a building. One alarming note is at the very tip is the city of Brownsville (Cameron Co.). Looks red. Bush did tremendously well among Latinos.

Also, we completely tanked in a whole lot of cities. I see red Houston, Dallas, Ft. Worth. San Antonio went red, as did everything in Oklahoma. Omaha, Mobile, Shreveport, Cincinnati, Harrisburg PA, Jacksonville FL, Tampa, Ashville NC.

I don't think we will ever win majorities of rural voters outside of certain ethnic regions (e.g. the counties south of San Antonio, the Mississippi delta) New England, and the upper midwest. We don't need to. What we need to do is to work on particular segments of these voters.

In this generation, the GOP will not win on a northeastern strategy, nor will we on a southern strategy. Florida is a generic state mixing SE, NE, MidW, and Latino elements, and outside that, and maybe Virginia someday, we won't win these places.

Looking back at the results, Kerry could not have played the geography game any better. A small difference in Ohio, and we would have won the presidency with a 3M vote defecit. Unless there becomes some favorite son issues, 2008 will be an instant replay of 2004.

[depakid]

15. It IS the South

and if you don't se that- that it's not geography- but the attitudes, beliefs and values- suh as they are, then you're hopelessly lost.

[Ripley]

37. Are you blind?

Do you really think the South has so much power they make people in Montana and rural Ohio and Alaska act adhere to their beliefs? Then how do you explain the blue spots in the south?

[GOPNotForMe]

17. I see my beautiful little Alachua county, FL

A tiny blue oasis amid a sea of red in Florida. I love Gainesville. I love living in a blue county, and, outside of presidential elections and midterms, I even forget I'm in nasty red Florida.

[mparker]

28. I here with you

I'm also in Alachua (Gainesville). Having UF here doesn't hurt.

[ContinentalOp]

18. That map looks like a cancer eating us from the inside. -nt-

[kerry-is-my-prez]

19. While we weren't looking they were in all the churches drumming up

hatred against gays (and probably blacks), telling men and women that the men are supposed to be in charge. They also went around to the catholic churches drumming up anger against abortion, etc. This is how they got the hispanic vote.

[Stuckinthebush]

30. Yes, you are right

What kills me is that a large number of women buy into that philosophy. Talk about having hatred for oneself...why would any woman agree to be subservient to any man?

[lynintenn]

36. so true

[leftofthedial]

21. excellent point

I thought most of the population lived in cities now.

[crickets]

23. Thank you

Thank you so much. The problem isn't necessarily north vs. south. I'm not certain it's even rural vs. urban; not completely anyway. I was born and raised in sticksville, GA, have since lived in the DC area, Los Angeles, and now I'm back in sticksville to look out for my aging parents. Our society is mobile, folks. Nonetheless, my political outlook has been fairly constant from my sticksville childhood on. I didn't have to leave home to find it. Yes, we do grow liberals in the South, even when they're born in a Republican household. It happens.

We also have a society captive to the Tee Vee, so those who don't move around are sometimes, in effect, news hostages. Finding better ways to communicate to rural areas which don't have all of the media options available in urban areas, even with cable, broadband, etc. is key. Framing the message in a way that it speaks to the concerns of those people is also important.

Uh, did that make any sense? *glances at beer*

Apologies if I'm incoherent. See you tomorrow, folks, and thanks again, LiberteToujours.

[choicevoice]

24. Thank you for that map

Unless we get some serious organization and strategies going we will never take our country back. This needs to be run like a campaign because that is exactly what it needs to be and we need to take a few lessons from their playbook. Democrats tend to want to be nice like the Kerry campaign in the beginning. Nice won't work. You have to know your enemy. I feel we have 2, the nut job evangelicals and the neo-con re-pukes.

First we have to quit assuming that the evangelicals are stupid. They were stupid enough to take over your country with the help of the re-pukes. They TOOK the word christian and values and came up with a campaign that scared the living crap out of what would be a normal christian. They convinced them that the LIBERAL democrats were going to ban the bible, make their kids gay and marry, teach their daughters how to have sex impregnate them and then make them abort, and spend all of their tax dollars, etc, etc. They are not stupid, they have a truly fucked up mental religious problem that binds them together. We have to go on the offensive against their image and we have to start now.

Another problem we have is the damn media. We need to come up with a strategy of some kind.

But alas I fear we will do as we have been doing, reading thread after thread and getting fired up and in a frenzy, post a zealous response then click to the next thread. I am hoping after things calm down we can get to doing the real work.

[Robeson]

25. kick

[EEgrad2003]

26. it seems like...

we need to convey to them what are the important issues of the election. I mean, people keep saying that we democrats are out of touch, but the Republican ran a race full of hate, fear, and ignorance. Those smoke screen tactics have blinded these people to what the REAL issues are. I have yet to meet anybody who voted for bush, that can present a valid or reasonable reason why. They're so stuck on petty issues that they forget that the country's been ran to shit that last four years, and it doesn't look like it's about to get any better.

[Iris]

27. You make a good point. But how can we use this to our advantage?

It's been my experience that people who live in rural areas do so because they are not interested in change. Furthermore, they have a belief system that tells them human nature is what it is and there's no point in trying to change things to make them better. On top of it, they are willing to accept their lot in life as simply that - their row to hoe.

[Stuckinthebush]

29. I'm reminded of something looking at your map

A few years back there was a kooky guy who posted on the internet claiming to be from the future. He said that there was a huge civil war in the early 21st century between the city's and the rural areas. While I'm pretty confident he wasn't from the future, he may have be rather prescient!

[Dastard Stepchild]

32. John Titor :)

That's the guy. He's still going strong. Civil War by 2005, according to him. Get yer guns ready! (or buy them, as in my case)

[Stuckinthebush]

45. He hasn't returned to his time yet?

:D

[Dastard Stepchild]

47. Too much work to do here in the now! :) (n/t)

[Dastard Stepchild]

31. See that little dot of blue by Lake Michigan? That's my Chicago :)

But you are so very correct. As has been the case since the inception of this country, it is rural vs. urban. Really always has been that way, and will likely continue to be the case in the foreseeable future. Capturing the rural vote means having the Democratic party embrace "religion." Not violating the separation of Church and State, mind you, but taking religion, and the providence of spirituality, back from the Pugs.
I really think it may be one of the only ways to reach out to a chunk of the rural voters.

[NorthernSpy]

34. Maine SHOULD show up with a HUGE swath of rural blue...

... including the geographically-biggest electoral district east of the Mississippi. 14 of Maine's 16 counties went for Kerry, and most of those counties are rural. And that map doesn't color any of this in!

Er.., they do realize that Maine is part of the United States, don't they?

[mtnsnake]

35. Huh? I think you need to look at this map. Maine is blue not white.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/front.htm?POE=HFQLCAMP

[sunnybrook]

38. aren't eastern republicans a little different

Aren't they less likely to be extreme evangelicals, more likely to be "liberal" Republicans? Could Olympia Snowe be elected in Mississippi?

[davepc]

39. George Pataki

would be a hardcore liberal in Oklahoma, but a Texas Democrat wouldn't be the same as one from the Upper West Side of Manhattan either.

[NewJeffCT]

40. eastern CT is blue, but often very rural

Much of eastern CT is rural with small farms, people driving pick-up trucks and the like.

[Toucano]

42. Exactly. Thank you. n/t

[formernaderite]

46. Give me a break...

"We need to communicate with them better and make them see that we are not what the Republicans portray us as."

You're going to blame the republicans for calling them names? Look around this site for about five minutes and you can read the worst of the worst name calling regarding rural working class people. Sorry, I can find lot's of things to blame the republicans with...but distaste for this "redneck" nation is not one of them.

[info being]

48. Population density.

[newportdadde]

50. Good links to this map?

Any good links out there for different versions of this map?

[mtnsnake]

61. Here is the link to the map that counts, the one with Maine as blue......

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/front.htm?POE=HFQLCAMP

[Gut Check]

51. What's the URL for the map? n/t

[newportdadde]

53. I found it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm

I'm proud to say I'm a member of Jackson County in Missouri which is one of the few Missouri counties to go blue.

[helnwhls]

54. Ah, the county of my birth

cold comfort, but it is nice to know.

[Gut Check]

58. thanks n/t

[helnwhls]

52. Just a kick

because as a southerner transplanted to the left coast, I have had to point this out a few times.

Thank you for breaking it down so simply.

[pk_du]

55. How many times do I have to say this

DIRT DONT VOTE

( unless you're in a "Diebold" county )

There are lots of valid comments here about the great divide (50-50)and reasons for but this map is misleading , and intentially so by Re-pukes.


This one is old (1990) and I'll find a newer one and repost , but it should be overlayed with the true voting county by county to do any serious analysis/commentary.

A zillion square miles of scrub-land or Rocky mountains with one old guy , his wife , three cats , one dog and million bunnies takes up Waaaaaay too much of the map the repukes/MSM like to throw around.

http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/catalog/national/html/Population.htmldir/USpop1990.html

and here's a more recent one from census Bureau.

http://www.census.gov/dmd/www/pdf/512popdn.pdf

[Mike L]

59. "It's urban vs. rural."

Correct. And middle America views it as pro-guns, pro-God and anti-gay marriage vs. anti-guns, anti-God and pro-gay marriage.

Time for a change (of our platform).

[helnwhls]

60. Kick!

:kick: