Posted on 04/16/2005 8:13:22 AM PDT by LdSentinal
Yeah, you could add up the other top 98 and they might not equal Riverside (Los Angeles) & Clark (Las Vegas). Either way, however, it's all Bush country. I posted a comment back in November mentioning that Calif could go Repub in the near future based on projected growth in all the counties that Bush took in the state.
What brings them to Johnson County?
Agriculture, specifically tobacco, originally. Now it serves for low cost housing as they commute to prosperous Wake County for construction jobs.
Over many years of field work, a hispanic infrastructure and cultural base was established.
The answer is simple. Take my home of Union County, NC, #21 on the list. Exurban Charlotte, growing rapidly because of spillover from Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) and people moving in from other states -- mostly "blue states," with New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, according to my unscientific neighborhood sampling, high on the list. All those blue-staters talk funny; they root for the Steelers and Syracuse in our sports bars; and they're more prone to have bagels than biscuits, or hash browns than grits, with their breakfast. But guess what? They're mostly conservative Republicans. You see, we're not getting a cross-section of folks from NY, PA, and NJ moving here. Generally speaking, we're getting corporate transfers, investors in local industries, and entrepreneurs. The group of northerners moving here is therefore skewed to the more intelligent, the higher income, and the more motivated. To put it a bit brutally, those who can leave New Jersey do leave New Jersey.
The local political implications are staggering. In the 1970s, Union County was mostly rural, and solidly Democratic. Today, it's mostly exurban, and solidly Republican -- including all County Commissioners, the Sheriff, State House and Senate members, and the two Members of Congress representing Union County plus others.
In 1980, Jimmy Carter carried Union County, 10,073 (51.2%) to Reagan's 9,012 (45.8%), even though President Reagan carried North Carolina. In 2004, President Bush annihilated Kerry in Union County, 42,820 (70.2%) to 17,974 (29.5%). Focus not only on the percentages, but the growth in the raw numbers over just 24 years. In 2004, President Bush's plurality in Union County -- nearly 25,000 -- was substantially greater than the total vote in 1980. Two things are at work here: "Bubba" has become Republican in the last three or four decades -- first at the top of the ballot (Nixon and Reagan), then at the Senate level (Jesse Helms), and more recently all the way down the ballot; combine the GOP move by the natives with the GOP transplants, and it becomes clear why so many Southern and heartland exurban counties are becoming the Republican Party's biggest assets.
L.O.L....all due to illegal immigration I bet?
Yeah, we're turning all the battlefields into urban parks, if already preserved, or strip malls, if not.
Change it to county.
We're getting a ton of blue county refugees here. The first wave is as red at the natives and was sick of Detroit. I'm worried that the elitist leftist "professionals" start moving out here from Ann Arbor, Farmington Hills(man has city changed) or Royal Oak. I don't want to see the same leftist crap that ruined Detroit to go here.
Pretty soon you'll have to speak Spanish just to drive through those counties.
How horrible for the people already living in those places.
"In the Portland area any evil corporation is pushed out or prevented from moving in."
That is exactly what's happening in the Dane County (Madison) WI & Milwaukee county areas; you know...the two counties rife with Voter Fraud? (You'll note that Wisconsin didn't make the posted growth list at all.)
I think it's hopeless for us to lure more Republicans to this state. They're too smart to move here, and those of us that have been here since birth are smart enough to know that if we leave, we'll be giving it up completely to the Socialists.
That said, that just leaves more North Woods acreage for me to own, protect & enjoy...and later sell to some Blue Stater at a greatly inflated price. Tee-Hee! ;)
ROFLMAO
Kiss your red thinking goodbye when those hordes move there and you're all living on top of each other.
Of course you won't even know what happened, because you'll morph into a liberal yourself--and you won't even know it.
In fact, you'll still think you're a conservative, like you do now.
Of course not one from New York..
I would like to see the opposite list.
Fastest shrinking counties. I wonder if Erie County NY would be first.
We lost over 14,000 between 2000 and 04..
What is happening in your home state and Oregon is happening all over the nice areas of America.
The Watermelons love it, the real estate people love it as property values soar, and the politicians in bed with the Watermelons love it.
bump
Of course not one from New York..
I would like to see the opposite list.
Fastest shrinking counties. I wonder if Erie County NY would be first.
We lost over 14,000 between 2000 and 04..
I think New York has at least 24 counties skrinking in population. Manhattan lost a bit. Overall, growth in the state is stagnant. Expect New York to have less than 30 electoral votes after the 2010 census.
Ouch!
Below is an interesting FR thread, re how GW carried 97 of these 100 fast growing areas. What makes it even more interesting is the LA Slimes published this story. The rats are saying that this is just little blip and has no signicance. They are wrong as usual:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285972/posts
GOP Plants Flag on New Voting Frontier
Los Angeles Times ^ | November 22, 2004 | Ronald Brownstein and Richard Rainey, Times Staff Writers
Posted on 11/22/2004 9:23:16 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Bush's huge victory in the fast-growing areas beyond the suburbs alters the political map.
WASHINGTON — The center of the Republican presidential coalition is moving toward the distant edges of suburbia.
In this month's election, President Bush carried 97 of the nation's 100 fastest-growing counties, most of them "exurban" communities that are rapidly transforming farmland into subdivisions and shopping malls on the periphery of major metropolitan areas.
Together, these fast-growing communities provided Bush a punishing 1.72 million vote advantage over Democrat John F. Kerry, according to a Times analysis of election results. That was almost half the president's total margin of victory.
"These exurban counties are the new Republican areas, and they will become increasingly important to Republican candidates," said Terry Nelson, the political director for Bush's reelection campaign. "This is where a lot of our vote is."
These growing areas, filled largely with younger families fleeing urban centers in search of affordable homes, are providing the GOP a foothold in blue Democratic-leaning states and solidifying the party's control over red Republican-leaning states.
They also represent a compounding asset whose value for the Republican Party has increased with each election: Bush's edge in these 100 counties was almost four times greater than the advantage they provided Bob Dole, the Republican presidential nominee eight years ago.
In states like Ohio, Minnesota and Virginia, Republican strength in these outer suburbs is offsetting Democratic gains over the last decade in more established — and often more affluent — inner-tier suburbs. As Democrats analyze a demoralizing defeat in this month's presidential election, one key question they face is whether they can reduce the expanding Republican advantage on the new frontier between suburbs and countryside.
"When any party is losing a growing group of voters, that's a problem —"
I have no idea what you're talking about. These areas are growing because of people escaping the liberal paradises of big cities, and they are being populated by couples who have larger families than the Lib's do. I see this all as a net gain for the GOP and conservatism in general.
~~~ and business taxes in general.
Roger that Dave!
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