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FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

nytimes.com

61–70 of 99 posts

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#61
post #17

It would be awesome if this could somehow incorporate relative positions of the parties over time, perhaps by 'waving' the center line left-right as well. For example it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle of the road democrats of today in terms of overall platform.

That would also show how far right wing the Republican party has gone.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#62

Of course, none of this actually matters anymore. The corporo-verlords have bought both parties. The only way is parliamentary system with proportional representation. This isn't a political statement, just that hackers should investigate how to hack the system into that form. One clever hack is being done by John Koza (inventor of genetic programming) to do away with the electoral college http://www.nationalpopularv…

Here, sample some of this: http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/04/open-le...

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's on the high end, but I think around 80-90% Democratic for an urban core is fairly common. It's hard to get exact numbers because it depends on where lines are drawn. For example, Cook County (where Chicago is located) "only" voted 76% Obama, but it includes a number of suburban areas, and would be >80% if you pruned them. Here are the next-most-Democratic cities I came across in some spot-checking, with NYC boro…

> 70% in San Jose County Santa Clara County? :-) > LA County Sorry, I guess we're a bit overly fussy out here. That one would be Los Angeles County. (Not that you couldn't call it LA County, just doesn't sound quite right. It's not uncommon to abbreviate the city to LA, but not so much the county.)

Not only irrelevant, but also wrong. We say "LA County" all the time.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#64
post #30
post #17

It would be awesome if this could somehow incorporate relative positions of the parties over time, perhaps by 'waving' the center line left-right as well. For example it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle of the road democrats of today in terms of overall platform.

> it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle road democrats of today in terms of overall platform. That's because it's correct, depending on what you mean by 'middle road Democrat'. Nixon created the EPA, created OSHA, signed Title IX into existence, ended the Vietnam war, and endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment, which nevertheless failed to pass. He couldn't have done a lot of thos…

I'll argue that the country is in many ways further to the right than it was then. I think today, even many Democrats are too brow-beaten to mention the EPA, OSHA, Title IX, ending wars, etc. Something like the ERA would be politically untouchable today for a Democrat much less a Republican. Not just among politicians, but among regular people.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#66

Can somebody from the US please tell me what the deal with the District of Columbia (on the far left) is? Also, this is another darn fine visualisation from the NYT.

Big cities in the US tend to be extremely left wing. A quick google search reveals this map:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html

New York County (Manhattan), Chicago and SF look a lot like DC. LA a bit less so, but that's probably because a lot of LA is suburban.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#67
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible that is a factor, but DC is >50% black, so it wouldn't be surprising to see a huge majority for Obama in 2008.

It's about 50% (50.7) http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html

It's been as high as 71.1% Black (in 1970). The percentage has been decreasing as Blacks have moved to the suburbs and Hispanics have moved into the city.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#68
post #17

It would be awesome if this could somehow incorporate relative positions of the parties over time, perhaps by 'waving' the center line left-right as well. For example it could be argued that republicans during Nixon's time were closer to middle of the road democrats of today in terms of overall platform.

During Nixon's time, an anti-Soviet Democrat could easily find a home in the Republican party.

Trying to assign modern labels to the political parties of the 60's and 70's is a bit silly. Two of the biggest issues of the time (the Cold war and segregation) no longer exist today. Neither party has a stated position on the Soviet Union and both parties are radical integrationists.

We could call that a huge leftward shift, except that integration was mostly a right wing issue up until Nixon's "Southern Strategy".

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#69
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I know cities tend to vote liberal, but DC has always seemed extreme to me, even accounting for that. I mean, I don't have data for how big cities vote in general, but I thought it was something like 70% liberal. A solid majority and dissenters. But DC voted 93% Democrat in 2008. 93! That's not a majority. That's a consensus.

DC is fed by US government. Democrats are pro-government, so DC votes for Democrats.

Cities are necessarily liberal entities, and people who live in cities tend to vote for more liberal parties.

Re: FiveThirtyEight: Over the Decades, How States Have Shifted

#70

Can somebody from the US please tell me what the deal with the District of Columbia (on the far left) is? Also, this is another darn fine visualisation from the NYT.

Big cities in the US tend to be extremely left wing. A quick google search reveals this map: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html New York County (Manhattan), Chicago and SF look a lot like DC. LA a bit less so, but that's probably because a lot of LA is suburban.

Big cities in the US tend to be extremely moderately liberal, not extremely left wing. In any other industrialized country, the Democrats would be a conservative party.
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