Texas Question

[minionofmidas]

The first map is 1996 results, the second is the 2004-2008 "trend" map. Now, I want to draw your attention to, for lack of a better term, the southeastern panhandle. Why does that (very sparsely populated) area behave much like East Texas?

[jimrtex]

Huge population declines (50-90%) from peak around 1940.  Marginal farming area, switching to ranching.  Nobody moving in with newfangled ideas like Republicanism. 

If you draw a line from Beaumont to Childress (which is the county just to the west of the SW corner of Oklahoma), in the area to the NE, Irish are the dominant Anglo group, while to the SW, German  are the dominant Anglo group, which indicates that the area was settled from the South, and is more like southern Oklahoma, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, etc.  It was settled after the Civil War, so no slavery, or particularly large Black population.

No big oil booms, far from the cities that became Republican, or were settled later.  The panhandle votes like northern Oklahoma or Kansas.  This area votes more like SE Oklahoma or along the Red River. 

Take a look at the 2008 Republican primary map for Texas.  In Texas, you have to have a county chair in order to have a primary.  About 1/2 the counties in this area did not have a Republican primary.  The total population is a factor here.  If you have 10,000 people in a county, you may be able to find someone to organize the primary.  If you have 1,000 perhaps not; especially if all the local office holders are Democrats.  In a county like that, if you want to run for office, you run in the Democratic primary.

For example, in Cottle County, 471 people voted in the Democratic Primary, there was no Republican primary, and McCain carried the county by 509 to 187.

[Sam Spade]

Missed this thread. 

Essentially, I have nothing to add to what jimrtex said, even though the counties W of Houston to the Colorado River that don't exactly fit in the direct line have a lot of the Scots-Irish Southern settlers as well (not as much as those east of the line), so it isn't exactly accurate.  As anyone who knows Texas history knows, the parts in between the Colorado and the Brazos rivers were the original white settlements in Texas and those folks were Southerners at that time.  But I digress...

But basically, east of the line you have, in an egoistic way of putting it, "Sam Spade ancestors".  West of the line - you have the German/Hispanic mix, with a lot of Catholicism present.

[minionofmidas]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

[jimrtex]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way Jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

The areas west of Houston are predominately German (or Czech - I'm pretty sure that it is the most Czech county in the country, unless there is some county in Nebraska).  I've seen a census from the late 1800s where Germans were the dominant group in Harris County.  Brenham, Cat Spring, Weimar, Praha, and New Ulm.  Of course, there are sometimes larger towns that have Anglo names but that doesn't necessarily indicate later immigrants.

Texas is unique among southern states in having significant settlement by deliberate colonization from Europe in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

[minionofmidas]

Texas is unique among southern states in having significant settlement by deliberate colonization from Europe in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

I know, I know.

Not relevant to the thread, though.

[Verily]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

I'm recalling an interview with someone in King County, Texas, which was McCain's strongest county in the country, last November or December, who said something along the lines of, "Actually, everyone here is a Democrat." Shall we launch into a rendition of a certain song from Fiddler on the Roof?

(Although actually King didn't vote for Clinton in 1992, so whatever. The counties around it did.)

[jimrtex]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

I'm recalling an interview with someone in King County, Texas, which was McCain's strongest county in the country, last November or December, who said something along the lines of, "Actually, everyone here is a Democrat." Shall we launch into a rendition of a certain song from Fiddler on the Roof?

(Although actually King didn't vote for Clinton in 1992, so whatever. The counties around it did.)

King County is different than the counties further east or even north or south in that it has virtually no agricultural areas.



[url=http://www.dot.state.tx.us/project_information/county_grid_search.htm]

[pbrower2a]

It may be excessively simplistic, but I can look upon Texas politically as if it were Kansas or Oklahoma grafted onto Florida. The Hispanics in Texas are Mexican-Americans instead of Cuban-Americans. Such cities as El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas are now comparatively liberal. So is the Lower Rio Grande Valley even if it contains no giant city but lots of small ones in a compact area. Wichita Falls, Abilene, Midland, Odessa, Amarillo, and Lubbock are still not large enough to have the well-developed (or anarchic, depending upon tastes!) suburban sprawl that itself creates a need for Big Government, and they might as well be in Oklahoma, Kansas, or even Nebraska. 

Texas seems to have or have had efficient government in which big property owners really run things and show some amazing (if ultimately selfish) foresight. The big landowners decided to become real estate developers and tried to attract  communities that would be conservative by nature. Thus they promoted the sorts of industries least likely to be unionized, and they promoted industries likely to need plenty of white-collar workers. They might allow colleges and universities to form, but these would lack any semblance of a college community.  Example: the University of Texas at Dallas has no dormitories (it is a commuter college) and there are no Berkeley-like businesses around. Any coffee shop nearby is a commercial Starbucks. The idea is to train people to be accountants, engineers, and perhaps school teachers. That kept much of Texas comparatively conservative for a long time.     

The economic realities of the giant cities are not that different from those in, for example, Ohio.  I can easily imagine such  counties as Collin (a fairly prosperous, rapidly-suburbanizing county north of Dallas) or Fort Bend going Democratic as urban sprawl renders them legitimately urban. Suburbia is urban due to its physical needs.
 

[Husker]

It may be excessively simplistic, but I can look upon Texas politically as if it were Kansas or Oklahoma grafted onto Florida. The Hispanics in Texas are Mexican-Americans instead of Cuban-Americans. Such cities as El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas are now comparatively liberal. So is the Lower Rio Grande Valley even if it contains no giant city but lots of small ones in a compact area. Wichita Falls, Abilene, Midland, Odessa, Amarillo, and Lubbock are still not large enough to have the well-developed (or anarchic, depending upon tastes!) suburban sprawl that itself creates a need for Big Government, and they might as well be in Oklahoma, Kansas, or even Nebraska. 

Texas seems to have or have had efficient government in which big property owners really run things and show some amazing (if ultimately selfish) foresight. The big landowners decided to become real estate developers and tried to attract  communities that would be conservative by nature. Thus they promoted the sorts of industries least likely to be unionized, and they promoted industries likely to need plenty of white-collar workers. They might allow colleges and universities to form, but these would lack any semblance of a college community.  Example: the University of Texas at Dallas has no dormitories (it is a commuter college) and there are no Berkeley-like businesses around. Any coffee shop nearby is a commercial Starbucks. The idea is to train people to be accountants, engineers, and perhaps school teachers. That kept much of Texas comparatively conservative for a long time.     

The economic realities of the giant cities are not that different from those in, for example, Ohio.  I can easily imagine such  counties as Collin (a fairly prosperous, rapidly-suburbanizing county north of Dallas) or Fort Bend going Democratic as urban sprawl renders them legitimately urban. Suburbia is urban due to its physical needs.
 

I haven't spent too much time in Texas but that seems to be a pretty astute observation. I've been to Houston and Dallas and parts of the panhandle and north Texas. The panhandle has similar political opinions to those in western OK, KS, NE, and eastern CO. Houston and Dallas are incredibly sprawled out  and Houston, in particular, seems to lack any zoning. The suburbs will likely become more democratic but keep in mind religion and just general social conservatism plays a bigger role in suburban areas down there than it would in Ohio, or at least I'm guessing.

[Sam Spade]

It may be excessively simplistic, but I can look upon Texas politically as if it were Kansas or Oklahoma grafted onto Florida. The Hispanics in Texas are Mexican-Americans instead of Cuban-Americans. Such cities as El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas are now comparatively liberal. So is the Lower Rio Grande Valley even if it contains no giant city but lots of small ones in a compact area. Wichita Falls, Abilene, Midland, Odessa, Amarillo, and Lubbock are still not large enough to have the well-developed (or anarchic, depending upon tastes!) suburban sprawl that itself creates a need for Big Government, and they might as well be in Oklahoma, Kansas, or even Nebraska. 

Texas seems to have or have had efficient government in which big property owners really run things and show some amazing (if ultimately selfish) foresight. The big landowners decided to become real estate developers and tried to attract  communities that would be conservative by nature. Thus they promoted the sorts of industries least likely to be unionized, and they promoted industries likely to need plenty of white-collar workers. They might allow colleges and universities to form, but these would lack any semblance of a college community.  Example: the University of Texas at Dallas has no dormitories (it is a commuter college) and there are no Berkeley-like businesses around. Any coffee shop nearby is a commercial Starbucks. The idea is to train people to be accountants, engineers, and perhaps school teachers. That kept much of Texas comparatively conservative for a long time.     

The economic realities of the giant cities are not that different from those in, for example, Ohio.  I can easily imagine such  counties as Collin (a fairly prosperous, rapidly-suburbanizing county north of Dallas) or Fort Bend going Democratic as urban sprawl renders them legitimately urban. Suburbia is urban due to its physical needs.
 

It looks like that my referring of you as a "f****t" edit for Dave: members of a special class on this forum was a great compliment as compared to what you really are - given this post...