Two books immediately came to mind, and I'd be shocked if they weren't sources of inspiration for the author.
The Nine Nations of North America (1981), by Joel Garreau, makes a similar effort to carve up the United States (and, in Garreau's case, Canada as well) into areas of commonality. Garreau's book was much broader in scope than Sullivan's article, which focuses on the political implications of the geographic breakdowns as he sees them.
Another obvious model is Kevin Phillips' prescient The Emerging Republican Majority (1969), still a good read and still accurate in many ways 34 years later. Phillips popularized the term "Sun Belt," linking the conservative sentiments of the South, the Farm Belt, the Rockies, and (less accurately, it turns out, Southern California). The "Sun Belt" concept seems so obvious now -- mirroring to a large extent the perennial GOP targets -- but the idea seems not to have been previously considered very much. Phillips, of course, broke down the Sun Belt into subregions, and frankly, many of his maps are more logical (if less detailed) than Sullivan's.
It's easy, of course, to nitpick the regions and boundaries that Sullivan comes up with. The "Big River" region seems particularly contrived to me. But it's a very interesting study, and one I'm sure will get the attention of strategists on both sides of the 2004 race.
50% of the land area he demonstrates in California is probably the most gentrified area in the state and has limited diversity. Starting from Oxnard northward, with the exception of Oxnard/Ventura on the south, King City/Salinas in the middle and San Jose in the north, the majorty of the area is populated by substantial wealth, mainly liberal to moderate and almost exclusively anglo.
The second highest percapita concentration of Hispanics in the US, behind the LA Basin, is located in the San Joaquin Valley, a substantial land area, which the author places in the Sagebrush.
This old boy paints whith a broad and loose brush in the West. Are the other areas as inaccurate as well?
There are two Democrats from the region running for president this time around, both of whom are trying to restore once-impressive political reputations: former US Sen. Carol Mosley-Braun of Illinois and US Rep. (and former Cleveland mayor) Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.Dennis the Menace has had a horrible reputation for nearly a quarter of a century. He couldn't get elected countywide in Cuyahoga, let alone statewide and not to mention nationwide. He's got his district loaded with enough class-envy susceptible voters to elect him, and that's his niche. His Presidential run is the purest vanity.
Actually, Cleveland's suburban counties are by no means all Democratic. Medina County is pretty solidly Republican and GOP congressman Steve LaTourette has no problem getting re-elected in Lake and Geagua.
-Eric