Rank Each State on the Spectrum

[IceSpear]

How on earth is Connecticut "Populist Leaning Liberal"?

Isn't it the richest state in the Union?

The most resentful, class conscious people in America today are the well educated, urban and suburban  professionals. Between their student loans and the sky high housing costs of their popular neighborhoods, they're barely getting by on their $100k/year and many are informed enough to know that the uber-rich really are screwing everybody else sideways. The less well to do people are more frequently true believers in the American Way. It's a funny world we live in.

You just perfectly described why True Leftism is a joke ideology. Sorry guys, but the poor and working class right wingers don't WANT your convoluted Marxist theories (no, not even dialectical materialism).

But, but, if we only showed these long Wikipedia articles to us Bible-thumping folk, we'd surely read them and change our minds.

LOL. After one hour of reading about dialectical materialism, you'd take up arms against the bourgeoisie in an insant.

I'm suddenly reminded of a great quote:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Wow, it's like George Orwell is talking directly to Snowstalker...

[Rockefeller GOP]

How on earth is Connecticut "Populist Leaning Liberal"?

Isn't it the richest state in the Union?

The most resentful, class conscious people in America today are the well educated, urban and suburban  professionals. Between their student loans and the sky high housing costs of their popular neighborhoods, they're barely getting by on their $100k/year and many are informed enough to know that the uber-rich really are screwing everybody else sideways. The less well to do people are more frequently true believers in the American Way. It's a funny world we live in.

I hope you aren't suggesting that wealthier people vote Democrat more often (unless you're making another cutoff for $200k+, which voted for Romney comfortably).

As for the OP, states like AR, WV and KY might be culturally conservative and may be trending Republican on the national level, but all three have Democrats as governors, and none of the three are particularly fiscally conservative.

[Mr. Illini]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

[Person Man]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

[Skill and Chance]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

This shows why I am much more confident that the ideological change is permanent (generational) in VA/NH than in the Southwest.  I would also look for permanent shifting to the right in PA/OH as fossil fuels take off and the population there ages. Note that this map also gets the rhetorical limits on conservatism in Kansas right.  This is actually a powerful argument that Republicans need to diversify quickly.  ME/MN/MI/OR look like they are just too ideological to flip back in a non-landslide.  The Republican path of least resistance to a sustainable majority is probably this, with the major national consequence being moderating on immigration (scary for them initially in the midwest):

[Person Man]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

This shows why I am much more confident that the ideological change is permanent (generational) in VA/NH than in the Southwest.  I would also look for permanent shifting to the right in PA/OH as fossil fuels take off and the population there ages. Note that this map also gets the rhetorical limits on conservatism in Kansas right.  This is actually a powerful argument that Republicans need to diversify quickly.  ME/MN/MI/OR look like they are just too ideological to flip back in a non-landslide.  The Republican path of least resistance to a sustainable majority is probably this, with the major national consequence being moderating on immigration (scary for them initially in the midwest):

Then what's a good route for Democrats if the Republicans do that?

[Skill and Chance]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

This shows why I am much more confident that the ideological change is permanent (generational) in VA/NH than in the Southwest.  I would also look for permanent shifting to the right in PA/OH as fossil fuels take off and the population there ages. Note that this map also gets the rhetorical limits on conservatism in Kansas right.  This is actually a powerful argument that Republicans need to diversify quickly.  ME/MN/MI/OR look like they are just too ideological to flip back in a non-landslide.  The Republican path of least resistance to a sustainable majority is probably this, with the major national consequence being moderating on immigration (scary for them initially in the midwest):

Then what's a good route for Democrats if the Republicans do that?

1. Go after the couple of states that are unambiguously getting more liberal (not just more diverse)

2. Go after states that are more Republican than Conservative.  Note that I expect CO to remain swingy in this world and to still vote for Dems when they win nationally.

[anvi]

North Dakota is conservative, it certainly is statist, but not "hardcore" conservative.  For one thing, Dem politicians get elected to statewide and national government offices fairly frequently.  For another, even unpopular general election Dem nominees don't typically get slaughtered by 30+ points there unless it's a landslide.  On a national scale, I think the only really hardcore conservative states are Idaho, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Utah, and even Utah has a habit of electing some pretty moderate governors as of late.

[Person Man]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

This shows why I am much more confident that the ideological change is permanent (generational) in VA/NH than in the Southwest.  I would also look for permanent shifting to the right in PA/OH as fossil fuels take off and the population there ages. Note that this map also gets the rhetorical limits on conservatism in Kansas right.  This is actually a powerful argument that Republicans need to diversify quickly.  ME/MN/MI/OR look like they are just too ideological to flip back in a non-landslide.  The Republican path of least resistance to a sustainable majority is probably this, with the major national consequence being moderating on immigration (scary for them initially in the midwest):

Then what's a good route for Democrats if the Republicans do that?

1. Go after the couple of states that are unambiguously getting more liberal (not just more diverse)

2. Go after states that are more Republican than Conservative.  Note that I expect CO to remain swingy in this world and to still vote for Dems when they win nationally.

That actually sounds like one pre-Obama strategy I heard one democrat talking about in the late Bush years. That strategy was to maintain the 2000/4 firewall and target rural, secular white voters. Maybe by talking more about fracking and nuclear rather than solar and wind and punt on the issue of guns. Maybe we could talk wind and solar if it was intertwined with talking about hunters. There are limits to this strategy (we can't just totally cave on biodiversity, for example) but there are some reasonably partisan democrats (Freudenthal, Tester, Heitkamp, Salazar and Trauner got very close) would have been successful with this strategy. Maybe advocating a more medical approach on addiction and other social ills would help with these voters, too.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

icespear pls

[Skill and Chance]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

This shows why I am much more confident that the ideological change is permanent (generational) in VA/NH than in the Southwest.  I would also look for permanent shifting to the right in PA/OH as fossil fuels take off and the population there ages. Note that this map also gets the rhetorical limits on conservatism in Kansas right.  This is actually a powerful argument that Republicans need to diversify quickly.  ME/MN/MI/OR look like they are just too ideological to flip back in a non-landslide.  The Republican path of least resistance to a sustainable majority is probably this, with the major national consequence being moderating on immigration (scary for them initially in the midwest):

Then what's a good route for Democrats if the Republicans do that?

1. Go after the couple of states that are unambiguously getting more liberal (not just more diverse)

2. Go after states that are more Republican than Conservative.  Note that I expect CO to remain swingy in this world and to still vote for Dems when they win nationally.

That actually sounds like one pre-Obama strategy I heard one democrat talking about in the late Bush years. That strategy was to maintain the 2000/4 firewall and target rural, secular white voters. Maybe by talking more about fracking and nuclear rather than solar and wind and punt on the issue of guns. Maybe we could talk wind and solar if it was intertwined with talking about hunters. There are limits to this strategy (we can't just totally cave on biodiversity, for example) but there are some reasonably partisan democrats (Freudenthal, Tester, Heitkamp, Salazar and Trauner got very close) would have been successful with this strategy. Maybe advocating a more medical approach on addiction and other social ills would help with these voters, too.

Well, I quite simply don't think getting KY and WV back is worth it if the price is caving on coal.  But it would be best to just stop talking about guns as that looks like a no-win situation outside of 60% Obama states.  A viable gun control coalition would need another 20-30 years of urbanization to take hold.  I am assuming more of a libertine angle on crime here.  I think the fact that Obama was seen as insufficiently aggressive in the aftermath of the financial crisis has poisoned the inequality argument for Dems for the foreseeable future, so a populist approach would fail.  But the creative class strategy can expand further into the small cities and countryside the next time the GOP has full control and the libertarian/so-con debate heats up again.   

Look at the past several elections and consider how much Bush and McCain overperformed and how much Gore and Romney underperformed the economic fundamentals.  The party bases are sending a very clear message: the GOP wants religious (preferably Southern) populists and the Dems want aggressive (preferably Northern) social liberals with elite credentials.  In many ways 2004 was the actual change election- a Northern elite D vs. Southern populist R for the first time ever- and it provoked record turnout.

[pbrower2a]

Just went with the conservative to liberal scale. Did it on the politics of the residents.

30% shade = slightly liberal/conservative
50% shade = solidly liberal/conservative
90% shade = very liberal/conservative

Illinois and Indiana always look so weird next to each other surrounded by swingies and moderates.

Assuming this map is good maybe Kentucky and West Virginia will swing back if an alternative to the Carbon industry starts to flourish there. The same thing goes for Nevada and New Mexico if Republicans can do better with Hispanics.

That is asking a lot. Republicans have lost Hispanics until they abandon the anti-intellectualism that offends middle-class Hispanics who almost as a rule are well-educated. New Mexico is basically gone for the GOP except for an occasional Governor. Nevada? The gambling industry is in some ways the ideal "green" industry.

The GOP lost Mexican-Americans outside of Texas because of the real estate boom and bust that hit Mexican-Americans hard. Those who have been burned are not going to forgive the GOP for their "Opportunity (for economic ruin) Society" for a very long time. Why not Texas? Texas has some of the most stringent regulations of mortgage lending in America.

I can't imagine any high-tech industry being attracted to either Kentucky or West Virginia. Those states just have too little to offer. Even Michigan has more to offer, like better K-12 education (outside of Metro Detroit). For a dump, Detroit has some good high-brow culture... and some comparatively-cheap recreational waterfront. 

The Democrats are going to have to elect a Democrat for Senate in Kentucky or West Virginia to justify the pink. If Udall loses the Senate seat in Colorado, then Colorado goes light-blue and New Mexico goes medium-red.

I have downplayed populism in my assessment because populism is cyclical. "Populist" states swing Left and Right on economics (if little else). There have been times when the South was to the Left of America as a whole in politics -- as in 1976, when Jimmy Carter won all former-Confederate states except Virginia but lost a raft of states in the West and Northeast that few can now think of as "Republican in all but Democratic landslides". 

[pbrower2a]

My assessment:

 

This implies that I ignore "populist" and "libertarian" tendencies. Libertarian tendencies seem fairly stable, but populism is extremely cyclical. For a state like Arkansas or Georgia -- which way is the wind blowing?

 

[All Along The Watchtower]

How on earth is Connecticut "Populist Leaning Liberal"?

Isn't it the richest state in the Union?

Not everyone in CT is rich, believe it or not. Yes, the Gold Coast and parts of the rest of the state are insane, but many of CT's towns and cities are certainly not rich.

Check the results of elections by town maps in CT.  Notice any patterns?