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Democrats Add Suburbs to Their Growing Coalition
Washington Post ^ | November 6, 2008 | Alec MacGillis and Jon Cohen

Posted on 11/23/2008 4:54:17 PM PST by neverdem

After President Bush's reelection in 2004, top strategist Karl Rove proclaimed the arrival of a permanent Republican majority. Just four years later, the results from Sen. Barack Obama's definitive victory suggest that the opposite may be underway.

The Democrats appear to have built a majority across a wide, and expanding, share of the electorate -- young voters, Hispanics and other ethnic minorities, and highly educated whites in growing metropolitan areas. The Republicans appear at the moment to be marginalized, hanging on to a coalition that may shrink with time -- older, working-class and rural white voters, increasingly concentrated in the Deep South, the Great Plains and Appalachia.

Nothing demonstrates this reversal as clearly as the Democrats' ascendance in the suburbs and among the moderate, college-educated voters who dominate them. Obama won 50 percent of suburban voters, three points higher than Sen. John F. Kerry's showing in 2004 and the most by a Democrat since exit polling began in 1972, swelling his margins in a number of battleground states.

In Virginia, Obama offset losses in the rural parts of the state by not only winning Fairfax County...

--snip--

"This has been growing for years, and this election was a new leap forward," said Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz (D), who represents suburban Philadelphia. Obama "was running a wave that came crashing down in the best way possible. Many of the suburban voters I represent see the Democrats as more open to ideas, more centrist, more pragmatic, not so rigidly ideological as the Republicans have become."

--snip--

Exit polls suggested that there are already some potential fissures within the Democratic coalition. Nearly a quarter of Obama voters said the government is already doing too much. Nearly half of them favor offshore oil drilling. And more than half described themselves as moderate or conservative.

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


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: bho2008; election; election2008; obama; obamatransitionfile; suburbia; va2008
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Weirdos and socialists are centrists?
1 posted on 11/23/2008 4:54:18 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

I’m sure they will love a trillion+ dollar deficit


2 posted on 11/23/2008 4:56:45 PM PST by ari-freedom (So this is how Liberty dies... with thunderous applause)
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

To: neverdem
"Progressives" once again show their contempt and disdain for Southerners and Midwesterners and those who break a sweat at work.Flyover country,indeed.

Filthy,worthless elitists!

4 posted on 11/23/2008 4:58:39 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bin ein beginner")
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To: neverdem

All part of the new, “What’s In It for Me?” America.


5 posted on 11/23/2008 4:58:52 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (For more information on America's "new direction", read The Road to Serfdom. by Friedrich A. Hayek.)
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To: neverdem

Oops - someone at the WaPo posted their secret diary of hopes and desires.


6 posted on 11/23/2008 4:59:00 PM PST by relictele
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To: neverdem
"...highly educated whites in growing metropolitan areas..."

Oh. Liberals and homosexuals. Nothing they didn't have before.

7 posted on 11/23/2008 5:00:18 PM PST by rlmorel ("A barrel of monkeys is not fun. In fact, a barrel of monkeys can be quite terrifying!")
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To: neverdem

these wash compost OBama drones are just spitting out the talking points from a book written by one of these left clowns.
Who the hell believes exit polls ?


8 posted on 11/23/2008 5:01:11 PM PST by ncalburt (Read all about)
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To: neverdem

9 posted on 11/23/2008 5:03:25 PM PST by Old Sarge (For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be an American)
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To: rlmorel
Oh. Liberals and homosexuals.

Not just "liberals".Rich,guilt-ridden,trust funded liberals.Where I live (eastern Massachusetts) is just crawling with them.More Priuses than you can shake a stick at.

10 posted on 11/23/2008 5:04:52 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bin ein beginner")
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To: ncalburt

I think all you really have to do is look at the county by county election map to know this story is full of sh*t...


11 posted on 11/23/2008 5:05:08 PM PST by TV Dinners (Hope is not a Strategy)
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To: ncalburt

I believe the exit polls, but they do not say what these people are saying. Dem turnout was down. If Rep turnout had not been down, even the new college drones that obeyed their text messages would not have been enough for Obama to win. Basically, the more fiscally conservative folks stayed home this time, those that did not trust McCain. Aside from the not so practicing Catholics and the mentioned fiscal conservatives, the rest of the Right showed up.


12 posted on 11/23/2008 5:05:53 PM PST by Ingtar (For the first time in my adult life, I am NOT proud of America.)
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To: ari-freedom

That will nothing to them as long as the special interest groups get their “piece of the action”. They haven’t cared about America from the first, except what they can squeeze out of her, materially and in the way of power, the power to force everyone to be as degraded as they are.

The coming amnesty will only shore up their numbers, and they less than anyone will care about America as a “city on the hill”. It’s only a source of free money and goods to them, and they don’t care about the future either, even as they breed most of the future “citizens” who will require even more government freebies.


13 posted on 11/23/2008 5:06:11 PM PST by mrsmel (That one is not my president.)
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To: neverdem
O.K., so if Rove's prediction was premature, why don't these Lib fools, errrr journalists, wait until 2012 to proclaim teh fundamental "realignment."

Every engineer knows that it takes at least 2 data points to identify a trend.

14 posted on 11/23/2008 5:06:36 PM PST by Lysandru
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To: Gay State Conservative

You and I live in the same neighborhood. Tough to be a conservative up here.


15 posted on 11/23/2008 5:07:18 PM PST by rlmorel ("A barrel of monkeys is not fun. In fact, a barrel of monkeys can be quite terrifying!")
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To: FlingWingFlyer
All part of the new, “What’s In It for Me?” America.

My guess is that Hussein's Inauguration speech will bear little resemblance to JFK's...*that's* for sure.

16 posted on 11/23/2008 5:08:07 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bin ein beginner")
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To: neverdem

Don’t they just run this same photocopied story every two years?

We’ve always been at war with East Asia.


17 posted on 11/23/2008 5:13:45 PM PST by noblejones (<deprecate>Ben Stein 2008.</deprecate> Sarah 2012, 2016, 2020.)
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To: neverdem
If they have any sense at all, the additional $3,000,000,000,000 in federal debt, the upcoming $10 per gallon gas, unemployment rates of 15-20%, the destruction of the free American economy, confiscation of their 401ks, a rise in taxes of 100+%, defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the destruction of our military by gay and feminist activists, the ongoing loss of political freedom, the closing of Gitmo, a new "Fairness Doctrine" which shuts down dissenting speech, the appointing of 3 ACLU radicals to the Supreme Court, the ongoing destruction and subornation of our Federal Court system, mandatory "free" healthcare, blanket amnesty for 80-100 million illegals (including their extended families), and the adoption of mandatory Muslim-friendly policies in all schools and public places might change their mind in the next 4 years.

Or maybe not. After all, this has become an Oprahized country who vote for Obama because he is cool.

"Dangerous" doesn't count any more.

18 posted on 11/23/2008 5:30:18 PM PST by Gritty (Every voter now understands they can use their ballot as an instrument of plunder-Neal Boortz)
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To: rlmorel
Tough to be a conservative up here.

It may be tough for you but I think of it as paradise.Where else in the world can you live in the warm,protective cocoon of safety and protection provided by our own Dear Leader,Coupe Deval?

19 posted on 11/23/2008 5:36:24 PM PST by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bin ein beginner")
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To: neverdem

Fifty percent of suburbanites voted for Obama because millions of them don’t really pay attention to politics and Obama was sold as cool and an historical movement.

I know some of these Obama voters who claim they are looking forward to voting Jindal in 2016.

Obama merely attracted millions who, unfortunately choose style over substance. They are not wedded to the democrats.


20 posted on 11/23/2008 5:36:56 PM PST by Round 9
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