Democrats Covet The West But Can't Keep Losing The South (Dems Left Whistling Dixie Alert)

Los Angeles Times ^ | 05/16/05 | Ronald Brownstein

[Wonder Warthog]

"Is there any data on the voting habits of people who move from blue states to red states?"

I think the "electoral shift" that the article refers to is strong evidence that a significant majority of these folks vote conservative.

I think you have to also take into account the "urban/rural" split. Those liberals moving to places like Research Triangle Park in NC and Austin in Texas will congregate largely in central metropolitan areas, which are already strongly Democrat. The conservatives will more likely end up in the "burbs" and small towns around such areas, where they are less apparent on a day-to-day basis, but show up strongly during elections.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I think they have it all wrong here. Outside of Philly, St Louis, Detroit, NYC, San Franciso, Chicago, Milwaukee and Seattle, this is a Red country.

Is it any wonder why all the election fraud goes on there?

The South is firmly in the Red. If the Republicans can start picking off places like Milwaukee, Minneapolis or Seattle, the elections are landslides.

As a side note, look at the top 6 states with deficits.

California, NY, NJ. Wisconsin, Massachusettes and Pennsylvania.

All Blue states.

[nyconse]

In my area of Georgia (Woodstock), we used to be a one party town (Democrat). About 15 years ago give or take...Democrats woke up to losses across the board to the first Republicans to have run in twenty or thirty years. By the next election cycle, not one Democrat was left in office. Some quit but many changed their party. They were conservatvie Democrats anyway mostly-only Democrats by tradition. Now after 150 years of Democratic state control, the Republicans control everything. This is what happens when fed up blue state conservatives move south.

[Wonder Warthog]

"I think they have it all wrong here. Outside of Philly, St Louis, Detroit, NYC, San Franciso, Chicago, Milwaukee and Seattle, this is a Red country."

You are correct (and the "county-by-county" three-dimensional map of the last presidential election showed it dramatically). But I think the (red) rural folks are getting fed up with the (blue) city areas "wagging" entire states, and are moving to more congenial (climatically AND politically) areas.

For business reasons, I had to make the opposite move (from south Louisiana to western Washington state)--but when I retire, I "will" move back south and east.

[doberville]

Northern Virginia is Muslim!

[R. Scott]

If the libs keep collecting in the metro areas, it will dilute their vote.

[R. Scott]

I haven't been up there in a few years - last time I was there I thought I was in New England.

[Amelia]

This is what happens when fed up blue state conservatives move south.

It's also the Zell Miller effect - many of the "old South" Democrats feel the Dems have now become the party of big government and the GOP better represents "states rights". There are the Christian conservatives who feel the Democratic party doesn't represent their moral values, and sad to say there are a few unreconstructed Confederates who dislike the Dems because they feel the Democratic party caters too much to blacks & other minorities.

[lentulusgracchus]

Southern Democrats have been abandoned by their own party and it keeps showing up in the shift to the GOP across the South. Unless the Democrats get rid of the kooky Left that runs their party, they'll keep hemorrhaging in the Old Confederacy. And electoral votes will simply keep shifting out of their Blue State strongholds and the slight increase in California, their one bastion, isn't enough to make up for the severe losses elsewhere.

That's why Lyndon Johnson blew up the levee holding back Mexican illegal immigration.....

He knew from Texas's electoral history how the Mexicans and Chicanos tend to vote (Democrat), so he basically decided to inundate the South with Mexicans -- and I don't mean "Hispanics": Lynt'n didn't know diddly-squat from Puerto Rican or Cuban voting patterns, but he knew the Mexicans down in the Valley, and he knew he could count on them to turn in Democratic boxes.

So he dynamited the border with the 1965 immigration "reform" bill. On purpose. Deliberately. Knowing the likely consequences. Because he knew he'd driven Southern whites out of the Democratic Party by pushing and signing the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which stripped Southern states of the right to hold elections.

[kittymyrib]

Well, the Dems are burying thousands of FDR worshipers every day, and flushing liberal women's babies down the sewers to the tune of a million a year, and encouraging gay/les marriage, so I'd say demographically they are on the way to extinction. Good riddance.

[Wonder Warthog]

"If the libs keep collecting in the metro areas, it will dilute their vote."

Well, it will if enough conservatives move in to "non-metro" areas to cause an overall increase in number of conservatives. This is unlikely to happen in places like the northeast, where a few major metropolitan areas "wag" whole states (New York--NYC, Massachusetts--Boston, Illinois--Chicago). I think it is THOSE states that are driving out rural conservatives--who then move to more congenial spots in the South and West.

[Little Ray]

Just wait for illegals and felons to get the vote. That will shift the demographics back!

[lentulusgracchus]

For example, my own home town of Durham NC has been growing like crazy, fueled largely by out of state immigrants coming for econonic reasons. Atlanta and Austin also come to mind.

Partly true of Houston, too, where there is some major "cultural imperialism" going on, with New York architects designing the most recognizable buildings in town, making some of them deliberately resemble New York skyscrapers of the 20's and 30's, and with importation of a City Planning Department head from New York City (he lives in a high-rise condo close in, is that "urban animal" enough?) and a mass-transit administratrix from New Jersey.

They even re-timed the traffic lights Manhattan style -- it's "more efficient", you know. Yeah, right. Anything to be more like New York.

Like sinking the City a quick $2.5 billion or so in debt, to spend on ....."projects". Like a light-rail line everyone knows we don't need, for about $1.2 billion. Like "public art" all over the place, and another $1 billion's worth of new sports palaces for all three major sports -- leaving the Astrodome sitting there, disused and still costing us debt service on the $30 million or whatever it is we still owe on that structure's 1988 major overhaul. Plus another $3 billion or so in near-year light-rail additions.

Oh, and why did we need the new sports venues, seeing that the Astrodome and the Summit ("Compaq Center") weren't exactly falling down? Well, not enough luxury boxes to keep the social gradient steepening....not a sharp enough demarc between the grandees and the hoi polloi. We need more social stratification and snottiness, like New York. So we build new sports complexes, while the old ones are still in good condition and performing their functions.

Someone is making a hell of a lot of money off this City, which is also a very New York thing to do.

[R. Scott]

I think it is THOSE states that are driving out rural conservatives-

I know I wouldn’t want to live up there.

[Revelation 5]

You are so right.
We are Christian and Conservative Republicans and we retired from NJ to NC. We were tired of feeling as if we did not belong. We volunteered during the last election to work at the Republican Headquarters. Most of the people that came in all enthused about Bush were transplants. We spent more time with the transplants talking about how important it was to vote the Republicans in. Maybe it is because coming from different areas we are more aware of what the Democrats stand for.On our street the transplants are all solid Republicans and want to talk about it. I was shocked to find so many Democrats down here especially in the Church. Up North if you are a Christian it is taken for granted that you are a Republican, especially since the Clinton era.

[Courdeleon02]

One has to look at the effect of illegal immigration which directly impacts the census numbers which in turn determines the number of congressional districts alloted to each state. Illegal immigration inflates the population figures in Democrat controlled areas where most illegals reside giving those states disproportionate representation in congress and in the electoral college. How many congressional districts would Democrat controlled California lose if illegals were excluded from the census count? Is it any wonder why the liberals love illegal immigration. All the more reason why we must stand firmly against this illegal wave.I would go further and say that only U.S. Citizens should be counted in the census thus ensuring the integrity of congressional and electoral apportionment.