Rich Suburbs Move to Democrats

RCP ^ | 8/7/2007 | Froma Harrop

[oblomov]

GREENWICH, Conn. -- You know you're in a different kind of town when the signs against drunk driving show a line drawn through a Martini glass to which the artist thoughtfully added a stirrer. Greenwich, Conn., is one such town.

Greenwich is home to billionaire hedge-fund managers, private-equity kings and corporate chieftains, as well as ordinary multi-multimillionaires. Interviewing people here requires leaving phone messages with au pairs and catching folks between board meetings.

You'd think that Greenwich would be solid Bush-loving turf -- what with all those tax cuts for the rich. It is not. The voters are roughly 40 percent Republican, 40 percent unaffiliated and only 20 percent Democratic, but Bush won the town by only a sliver in 2004, even though his father grew up here.

The political shift toward Democrats has been noted in wealthy suburbs from Seattle to Philadelphia. In 2006, an amazing 63 percent of voters making from $150,000 to $200,000 chose Democratic candidates. Even those making over $200,000 favored Democrats, albeit by a small margin.

Greenwich has also become an incubator for liberal candidates. Local businessman Ned Lamont became the bloggers' hero last year for nearly unseating Iraq-war cheerleader Joe Lieberman in a Senate race.

[LexBaird]

Yeah, but the Kossacks want those loophole closed. And since they rule the Democratic party, the writing is on the wall.

They just think they do. The truth is, they are just a support constituency that the Dem politicians pander to, like the "civil rights" black vote. It doesn't mean they will actually DO anything for them. The Kos kiddies will be perfectly happy with symbolic showpiece legislation that gets nowhere, like Rangel's constant impeachment drumbeat.

[Clemenza]

I know that Greenwich has seen a sizeable influx of Jews (typically Democratic) and nouveau riche cafeteria Catholics, so I am not surprised.

Darien and New Canaan, however, remain heavily Republican.

The biggest shift I have seen has been in Nassau and Suffolk County New York, which used to vote RINO in local elections and GOP of all stripes by overwhelming numbers though the 1980s, to say nothing of Montgomery and Delaware counties outside of Philadelphia. Now, with the "greening" of the haute bourgeoisie, we should not be surprised that these are now Dem areas.

New Jersey is a bit more complex. The "new wealthy" communities in Morris, Somerset, and Hunterdon Counties still vote Republican, while the older high-income suburbs (Tenafly, Millburn, Upper Montclair, etc.) vote Democratic. The blue collar areas also tend to vote Democratic, although you have swing areas like Toms River and Hamilton where alot of law enforcement live.

[longtermmemmory]

These limosine liberals must live just north of Eddie Murhpie’s “Cotton Land” (where whitie goes to aliviate white liberal guilt) [old snl skit reference]

[Inwoodian]

I don’t know about elsewhere but many of the Greenwich rich are now Jews who are historically liberal.

[fieldmarshaldj]

That’s exactly what RINOs do, turn places rodent red.

[boop]

"Nothing new here. Greenwich is Hollywood without the coke."

I thought this was a huge non-story too. When was Greenwich EVER a republican bastion?

[Dead Dog]

Liberal= White, Affluent, Assuming.

IMO this is not a domographic shift. I doubt they voted for Regan.

[LurkedLongEnough]

Just a thought - maybe Chris Dodd is preparing to give up in politics, Ned Lamont heard about it and is getting his teeth sharp for an eventual step-in. Oh the humanity!

[txrangerette]

Agreed.

[Clintonfatigued]

Part of this is well-heeled liberals from the Big Cities moving to the suburbs to escape city life, then supporting the very policies that drove them from the city in the first place.

[x]

But the other element driving these people to the Democrats is Social, not economic. Wealthy Northeastern people tend to be secular rather than religious, or otherwise belong to very Liberal churches and synagogues. They live in cloistered communities and almost never have to deal personally with the pernicious effects of crime and drugs. They tend to favor illegal immigration because that's how their lawn gets mowed and their hedges neatly clipped. They don't own guns (except as showpieces) and don't know people who do. They do not work with their hands, except at the keyboard. They and their children attend elite universities where their social liberalism is reinforced if not further radicalized. The get their news from the New York Times and CNN, and their opinions from the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Esquire and look down their noses at the likes of, well, Us.

Good post. You've got it. But what happens when somebody from Greenwich logs on here and finds out how little use some of us have for him or her? It's a two way street, isn't it?

[Edit35]

Greenwich has been Democrap for the past 40 years, if not more.

Another media myth is being perpetrated by this writer.

[andy58-in-nh]

If someone from Greenwich logs on here, they are welcome as anyone to explore the range of opinion that exists within. I would dare offer that they will find a far broader range of sentiment at FR than they would encounter at, say DU, and I might add, ones far more elegantly expressed.

The cultural divide in America centers not on the "use" those of us on the Right have for "Progressives" nor on the use they have for us. Rather, the plane of American culture splits along Faith on one axis and Reason on the other. Liberals currently lie on the Left lower quadrant, and Conservatives on the upper Right. The Left in this day and age is both anti-Faith and anti-Reason, which would have fascinated (and perhaps appalled) our philosophical ancestors. They are, or are becoming nihilists. The consequence is that we speak different languages and exist on different planes of perception, which is why it is increasingly difficult for us to engage in civilized conversations, and why the Islamicist threat to all of us is now so greatly intensified. E Pluribus Unum is, sadly, no more than a motto now.

[normy]

you forgot actors.

[darkangel82]

That’s why all my friends from Ohio who went to OSU left the area after graduation.

[enviros_kill]

You are right - because research in persuasion and influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini (whom I have see and have read) indicates that people have the herd mentality and if they THINK that many people are doing a certain thing that leads to them replicating that behavior. Cialdini is advising companies/UK on how to become more green, so he’s no better than the rest of the elites/academics in that respect.

In praise of peer pressure
How a new form of marketing, using the appeal of fitting in, may persuade people to drink less—and turn down their thermostats
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/29/in_praise_of_peer_pressure/

[x]

Maybe, but a lot of this anti-East Coast stuff is having an effect. There’s a certain amount of complacency in the assumption that it all comes down to faith, too.

Whatever divides people in Greenwich from people in Bridgeport or Danbury or Connecticut's pagans and Christians tends to get submerged in the greater North-South or East-West animosity, and people find fewer reasons to buck regional trends.

[Non-Sequitur]

The Country Club Republicans used to be Rockefeller Wing Republicans. Their children have abandoned the GOP for the Democrats.

Abandoned? Or expelled as RINOs?

[andy58-in-nh]

There’s a certain amount of complacency in the assumption that it all comes down to faith, too.

If by "it", you mean to refer to the Great Divide in American culture, "it" does not come down to faith alone. As I said, it is a divide between those who embrace both faith and reason on one hand, and those who embrace nothing on the other, and by "nothing" I mean nothing but want and need, which is the state of most animals exclusive of Man. And yet, that is the very state of the Left today regardless of geographic location.

A lot of very smart people, many of whom live in Eastern enclaves, but many others of whom live on the West Coast or the cities of the South and Midwest, have come to embrace a sort of nihilistic pre-philosophy that makes them sublimate their intelligence in favor of a collectivist mindset. Why in the world would wealthy, successful people do this?

Life is not fair and many Elitists cannot get past that fact, so even if they perceive themselves as "Winners" they demand that Government make life fair by appropriating the property of some for the benefit of others. Guilt complex, anyone? Of course, present company is always excepted, and by means of political influence and/or expert financial planning, wealthy elite Liberals still get to keep their summer homes in the Hamptons, but hard-working entrepreneurs from the wrong side of the tracks are punished as upstarts with bad table manners, who got theirs presumably by illicit means. The Elite cannot tolerate those who have become happy and self-sufficient through means other than inheritance, legal services, or arbitrage, and look down on those without class pedigrees or social status who manage to succeed without the benefit of either.

What many Elitists are missing is what makes non-Elites successful: Faith, Reason, and Effort: faith in themselves and in their Creator, reason to guide their decision-making, and a lot of hard work. Kennedys think they are successful because they are Kennedys; if they really had to work for a living, they'd think it beneath them. Work is for the little people: like those who trim their hedges in Hyannisport.