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City-style

The editors of The Stranger point out that the Red-v-Blue State race really has nothing to do with states, per se: It's the Cities, Stupid:

Take a look at the second map. This map shows a county-by-county red/blue breakdown, and it provides a clearer picture of the bind the Democrats finds themselves in. The majority of the blue states--Washington, Oregon, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware--are, geographically speaking, not blue states. They are blue cities.

Look at our famously blue West Coast. But for the cities--Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego--the West Coast would be a deep, dark red. The same is true for other nominally blue states. Illinois is almost entirely red--Chicago turns the state blue. Michigan is almost entirely red--Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo turn it blue. And on and on. What tips these states into the blue column? Their urban areas do, their big, populous counties.

It's time for the Democrats to face reality: They are the party of urban America. If the cities elected our president, if urban voters determined the outcome, John F. Kerry would have won by a landslide. Urban voters are the Democratic base.

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» Metro vs. Rural from Son of a Pig Farmer
After the election, I ranted in You Can Lead a Mob to Reason, But You Can’t Make It Think I made some generalizations about the nature of red and blue states. This intentional generalization stirred up some dust, that... [Read More]

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on November 16, 2004 10:42 AM.

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