Seattle is controlled by government and labor unions. Like San Francisco there is also a large gay contingent that resists a cultural change to moral conservatism.
To the south of Seattle lie pockets of disgruntled blue collar neighborhoods. Decades of layoffs and hiring booms have left a population accustomed to seeking often frivolous disability and freebie subsidies from the state.
Along the Seattle side of Lake Washington and along the north side of the City facing the Puget Sound are a new demographic of more conservative minded families and young professionals. They choose to live in Seattle to avoid the long commutes from the eastside of Bellevue-Redmond-Kirkland. They keep their politics silent out of fear of getting into confrontation with very vocal liberals.
The University of Washington lies more to the northend of Lake Washington and by a cut leading ultimately to the Puget Sound. It supports fringe groups that border on terrorist cells.
Abortion issues keep women voting democrat. In my opinion many of these women had abortions early because of loose morals and need the democrat party platform to soothe their angst about how thay 'corrected' their mistake. Roe vs. Wade provides them an affirmation that they are in some sort of mainstream of national consciousness.
No idea how the perspectives of pro-abortion women will ever change since they see Christians as opposed to their 'mistake' of getting pregnant. They fear Christians.
Many such women in their 40s and 50s say they got married because they got pregnant and they are bitter that they married too young and often to a man who could not care for them while suffering layoffs repeatedly with the boom and bust cycle of Boeing and their many subcontractors.
Seattle's economy is now more diversified but lags in employment because of an unfriendly business environment. The rest of the state appears to be 'getting it' but the city of Seattle is stuck in liberal mud.
that pretty much nailed it. All true
You're right about the unfriendly biz environment here - and we have only the Dem stronghold on the Govenor's office for about 20 years and the state legislature to blame (the Seattle City Council and King County Council haven't helped).
Based on figures I've pulled from the WA Sect'y of State's Web site, there are 6,686 precincts in the state of WA and 2,616 of them are in King County (the Seattle Metro area)(which is a little over 39% of the precincts in the State).
If we further look at the counties & precincts that have a negative Bush/Kerry number it breaks down to 12 counties (out of 38 for the state) and 4,581 precincts (out of 6,686) - -996864 votes for K and 700408 for Bush (out of 1,305,868 for K and 1,130,537 for B statewide).
That is very true. I live in the north end facing Puget Sound, and I have been pleasantly surprised at the growing numbers of Republican neighbors that I have.