New England

[pbrower2a]

The only counties east of the Hudson River to vote for McCain were Piscataquis County (barely) in Maine and Putnam County, New York.

(Richmond Borough, New York -- a/k/a Staten Island -- did vote for McCain, and just barely, but it is west of the Hudson).

[pbrower2a]

Check the margins in MD, DE, NY, MA, RI, CT, ME, VT...

These people have been voting Democratic for nearly 20 years now.  It would take something fairly disastrous for the GOP to even be competitive in most of the region.

...Add MI, WI, IL, MN, WA, OR, CA, HI, and DC and you have 248 electoral votes as of 2008 that haven't voted for the GOP nominee since 1988, and not one of them was close to voting for McCain in 2008. Except for DC, CA, and HI they have above-average achievement in formal education, and except for VT they are very urban. Voting participation rates are high. When the Democrats have a seeming lock on 90% of the electoral votes necessary for winning the Presidency, the GOP nominee has a tough  campaign.

Then add NH, IA, and NM, which have each voted for the GOP candidate only once in the last five elections. Ouch!

Urban, well-educated, and with high voting-participation rates -- that is all very different from the Old South (where for about 90 years blacks could legally vote if they could get around all the practical barriers, like having to prove that one could read material that the registrar could select. That could be Pravda). Those solid Democratic states aren't going back to the farm soon, and they aren't going to go dumb fast, either.     

[pbrower2a]

What troubles me about New England is the fact that states like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have trended hard toward the Democrats since 1988, totally out of proportion to the rest of the country. I understand the region has historically been more liberal, but fail to see why it has become so much more pronounced over the last 20 years.

On the other hand, New England only has 6.3% of all electoral votes, so perhaps the GOP's decline ultimately does not matter there in the grand scheme of things.

The region has about the same number of electoral votes as Texas, the second-largest state in electoral votes, so it's no triviality. New England is liberal because of its political heritage, and political heritage does not change quickly. Party agendas can change, and Party affiliations among voters can also change. New England hasn't changed; it's just that the GOP has changed from a Party with a liberal wing to one with none.

No less importantly, the GOP has been losing New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Illinois at the same time. Washington and Oregon seem far away -- but they have cultural affinities to the Northeast.

It doesn't get any better with, for example, Indiana or Virginia -- States that hadn't voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1964, but have slowly trended away from the GOP enough to do so in 2008.

Trends can reverse,  but I wouldn't bet on it this time. 

[pbrower2a]

Oh for a return to those golden days of New England politics, the days when New Englanders appreciated iniative, enterprise, and independent thinking.

It still is so.

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Until then the GOP was still the more liberal of the two main Parties -- mostly because the Democratic Party remained heavily under the domination of Southern agrarian interests.

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When the GOP was seen as the Party of Depression.

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Eisenhower was a great President -- no qualification.

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JFK, of course!

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The Southern Strategy made the GOP the Reactionary Party and made it largely irrelevant in New England.

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If you have ever read Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fisher, you will notice that the political parties have practically flip-flopped in their constituencies over a century. States that largely voted for Bryan in 1908 voted for Obama in 2008; states that voted for Taft in 1908 largely voted for Obama in 2008. It's just amazing -- but it reflects how Parties could drift in their cultural affinities. A hundred years ago, Democrats won the votes of southern agrarians and Republicans got the black vote (where it could vote). Democrats got the votes of under-educated white people and Republicans got the educated white vote. How that has changed!

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An understatement! Of course one could also say that the GOP became irrelevant in New England as it pandered to constituencies (white Protestant fundamentalists) that aren't to be found in large numbers in New England. 

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When?

The Ozarks and southern Appalachians are just as picturesque. Take I-95 to greater New York City, I-78 west to I-81 just east of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania... and you will be only a day away from picturesque places likely to go Republican in 2012.

[pbrower2a]

What troubles me about New England is the fact that states like Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont have trended hard toward the Democrats since 1988, totally out of proportion to the rest of the country. I understand the region has historically been more liberal, but fail to see why it has become so much more pronounced over the last 20 years.

On the other hand, New England only has 6.3% of all electoral votes, so perhaps the GOP's decline ultimately does not matter there in the grand scheme of things.

The GOP use to have a liberal wing of the party, they don't anymore.  The old school Rockefeller Republicans finally had enough, and jumped ship from the party.  The anti-intellectualism that some in the GOP seem to take pride in hasn't helped either.

New England might make up 6.3% of the electoral votes, but the problems have spread beyond there.  Its from D.C all the way up, and now going further.  Northern Virginia use to be strongly GOP, and that has switched just about as much as New England and it has taken the state with it.  The same issues have happened in North Carolina as well especially in Mecklenburg County and the Raleigh-Durham areas.

Don't forget Florida, which is Southern only in latitude and climate.

Add to that some areas that have cultural ties to New England and New York State  -- Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Washington, and Oregon. Northern California is essentially the same. The GOP had big trouble in Indiana in 2008, and for a time it looked as if Indiana could go for Obama in a close race.  The GOP absolutely cannot win without Indiana, where college towns combined with the Industrial Northwest, South Bend, and Indianapolis to shove Indiana into the Obama camp. Obama's latest approval rating in Indiana was 62%, which is in the same range as those for Wisconsin and Michigan.

So it's not just the Potomac -- it's the Ohio too. Maybe the Sacramento River as well. Political culture matters greatly, and the GOP is in big trouble with large parts of America.

I look at the 2012 prospects, and I see no GOP candidate with a war record that might bring out a sympathy vote. Any general who gets credit for ending a war in Iraq or Afghanistan won't run until at least 2016. If I were GOP I wouldn't even trust the military vote should Obama have success in Iraq and Afghanistan.