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THE URBAN ARCHIPELAGO-- mag urges Dems 'go urban' to regain political supremacy (long article)
the stranger.com ^ | 11/17/04 | Editors of The Stranger

Posted on 11/19/2004 10:02:19 AM PST by dukeman

It's the Cities, Stupid.

It's time to state something that we've felt for a long time but have been too polite to say out loud: Liberals, progressives, and Democrats do not live in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America. We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion--New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, St. Louis, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and on and on. And we live on islands in red states too--a fact obscured by that state-by-state map. Denver and Boulder are our islands in Colorado; Miami and Fort Lauderdale are our islands in Florida. Citizens of the Urban Archipelago reject heartland "values" like xenophobia, sexism, racism, and homophobia, as well as the more intolerant strains of Christianity that have taken root in this country. And we are the real Americans. They--rural, red-state voters, the denizens of the exurbs--are not real Americans. They are rubes, fools, and hate-mongers.

.....

If Democrats and urban residents want to combat the rising tide of red that threatens to swamp and ruin this country, we need a new identity politics, an urban identity politics, one that argues for the cities, uses a rhetoric of urban values, and creates a tribal identity for liberals that's as powerful and attractive as the tribal identity Republicans have created for their constituents. John Kerry won among the highly educated, Jews, young people, gays and lesbians, and non-whites. What do all these groups have in common? They choose to live in cities....An urbanist agenda may not be a recipe for winning the next presidential election--but it may win the Democrats the presidential election in 2012 and create a new Democratic majority.

(Excerpt) Read more at thestranger.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: kerrydefeat; urbanvote
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To: Red Badger

Problem is: it's not the color of the state, it's the color of the high-population precincts. CA & NY are actually mostly red - they just suffer from tiny but intense blue areas, the urban archipelago.


21 posted on 11/19/2004 10:35:57 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: dukeman
We live on islands of sanity, liberalism, and compassion

No. You live on islands of greed, fear, godlessness, self-hatred, and violence. Stay there. The waters of the "red sea" are rising...

22 posted on 11/19/2004 10:36:25 AM PST by pabianice
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To: ctdonath2

I wonder if anyone has done a color map using precincts instead of counties. I've seen that PURPLE monster that shows shades of red-blue depending on the percentages of the counties.....


23 posted on 11/19/2004 10:38:18 AM PST by Red Badger (Give someone enough EU-ROPE and they will hang themselves......out of pure frustration......)
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To: dukeman
From the article: Laws limiting taxes have a disproportionate impact on cities, which rely on local levies to pay for basic social and human services like domestic-violence programs, low-income housing, and tenant advocacy. If you're wondering why the city is suffering draconian budget cuts--$24 million this year, $20 million in 2005--you can thank rural voters who seem unable to grasp a basic Christian tenet; greed is bad, sharing is good.

How the heck is it "sharing" when my tax money is taken from me essentially under threat of legal action? Now, I think it's necessary that government levy some taxes, it couldn't function on donations alone. But don't call it sharing. By the way the article's a lot easier to swallow if you read it as a satire rather than a serious piece (if this guy's serious he needs meds, stat.) I can't believe how he complains about some states actually spending federal transportation money on building roads -- the horror! Darned metrosexuals.

24 posted on 11/19/2004 10:38:46 AM PST by patricktschetter
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To: bowzer313

liberalism is a cancer that metastasizes.......


25 posted on 11/19/2004 10:39:28 AM PST by Red Badger (Give someone enough EU-ROPE and they will hang themselves......out of pure frustration......)
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: Red Badger
Here's the most important red/blue map so far:

...showing voting preference by actual population density distribution.

27 posted on 11/19/2004 10:41:36 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: patricktschetter

Muggers believe in "sharing" too.


28 posted on 11/19/2004 10:42:39 AM PST by ctdonath2
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To: dukeman
I am waiting for the next season of "The Simple Life" to come out starring Hillary & Pelosi red stating and gettin teh knows dem simple folks. Umm.. Picture above is not Hillary and Nancy.
29 posted on 11/19/2004 10:45:27 AM PST by TheForceOfOne (Get us out of the U.N.!!!)
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To: Jokelahoma

About 9 months ago I was sitting in the cafeteria at a ski area long popular with the elites of San Francisco [hint, M-I-C...K-E-Y]. An interesting conversation was happening down the table from me and my wife. There were three Boomer men discussing W using less than flattering terminology. So naturally my evesdropping instinct kicked in. The hatred and vitriol was immense. The three turned out to be lawyers. It was apparent to me that these three lived their lives in San Francisco, and in mini islands of "their culture" such as that ski area. They had no interest in any of the rural communities which one finds when one ventures away from the Interstate Highway that they had taken to get to the ski area. More likely than not, they had never, in their many years of living in San Francisco, attempted to do any such venturing. They more likely than not had no relatives or friends living in rural areas or even in some of the cities of the inland USA.

On a different but related note, we have an acquaintance who, although a native Californian, got an MBA at a famous NYC business school named after a godess. Upon getting his piece of paper he did the working-at-all-hours investment banker thing and eventually ended up after that slog in CFO land. However, his first C level assignment was not on either coast but in a state in the interior Western US. At his age, still not too old, but running out of time, to a degree, in terms of settling down, that assignment would have been a real boon to doing so. One can live like a king in that state, working as a CFO. But no, he ended up taking a lesser position, after less than one year, because being a complete metrosexual, and often, I might add, mistakenly thought to be a homosexual, he simply could never gain even a modicum of social comfort in the interior Western city.

These are the real people of the festering blue blisters.


30 posted on 11/19/2004 10:57:00 AM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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To: ctdonath2

Imfamous blue blisters in Red States: Las Vegas, Tucson, Austin ... LOL


31 posted on 11/19/2004 11:01:33 AM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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To: msnimje
We live on islands of sanity, liberalism...

Liberalism is the political philosophy of cultural suicide. It's a twisted amalgam of mental illness and evil. Thank you for showing us your true self.

32 posted on 11/19/2004 11:07:38 AM PST by ZeitgeistSurfer
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To: FrankWild

I wonder how the highly educated of the Urban Archipelago plan to feed themselves or extract minerals to warm their homes without the assistance of Red America

SOYLENT GREEN


33 posted on 11/19/2004 11:08:11 AM PST by azcap
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To: ctdonath2

Wow...good pic. I'm proud to be in that dark red blotch next to innards of Chicago.


34 posted on 11/19/2004 11:13:26 AM PST by BureaucratusMaximus ("We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good" - Hillary Clinton)
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To: dukeman
This is a fabulous idea. Pinko, bed-wetters move away from Ohio, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada, Iowa, along with other Red states. Move to the big cities in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Florida. That locks us in at 267 electoral votes, not including Florida or Colorado.

So each election cycle we focus on Colorado and Florida. Considering we won Florida handily, and Colorado is pretty Republican, I think I can live with that. Additionally, the pinko's pack into urban counties and give up more congressional seats. So please, move to your urban archipelagos.
35 posted on 11/19/2004 11:13:59 AM PST by CondiArmy
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To: dukeman

Yea, that's it homies.. Hip Hop's gonna get you the white house...


36 posted on 11/19/2004 11:14:22 AM PST by HamiltonJay ("You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.")
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To: GOP_1900AD
he simply could never gain even a modicum of social comfort in the interior Western city

There are plenty of us who vote "red" that could never live in a truly "red" area.

Given the choice between NYC and upstate NY or LA and the interior of CA, I'd pick NYC and LA.

37 posted on 11/19/2004 11:18:33 AM PST by Modernman (Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. --Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Red Badger

Wouldn't that be WONDERFUL? I would love it--let these liberal/commie panty wastes secede from the Union. The rest of us (the citizens of Jesusland) would be much better off without them.


38 posted on 11/19/2004 11:36:44 AM PST by libertyman
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To: dukeman
A STRANGER AMERICA
39 posted on 11/19/2004 11:42:25 AM PST by Charles Henrickson (Urban Scrawl.)
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To: Modernman

The key is, you neither want to force your urbanism on truly red areas nor are you somehow threatened by or angry at people who live in truly red areas. As for myself, I, like you, presently have somewhat the city slicker life (ableit, only barely, as I am literally at the outskirts of the SF Bay urbanized area), although, unlike you, I could, in a flash, move into rural mode with no issues whatever. I am equally comfortable in both environments.


40 posted on 11/19/2004 11:51:52 AM PST by GOP_1900AD (Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)
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