--- Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com> wrote: " on the other hand, not only is the country pretty polarized in some important ways, but the geographical alignment is becoming significant. perhaps a new sectionalism or something (why do i think ruy texeira has done something on this?"
I dont know about ruy Texiera, but Stanley Greenberg's Two Americas does. He lists and describes something like 15 demographic voter segments and estimates how much in play any of them might be for the Democrats. The descriptions are so smart and contemporary, and seemingly exhaustive, you wonder how the Dems, if they read the book, could ever lose an election.
BobW
> On 8/6/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > On Aug 6, 2007, at 11:03 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> >
> > >> That's one vote, and heck, the Dems have been
> ardent warriors since
> > >> forever. As Bob Dole said, all the wars of the
> 20th century were
> > >> Democrat wars, except Gulf I which happened
> after Dole said that. Who
> > >> founded the CIA and incinerated Vietnam?
> > >
> > > Exactly. Doug, I'm having a hard time figuring
> out which side of the
> > > question you're on. You seem to be making my
> case for me here. Perhaps
> > > I've failed to grasp your point?
> >
> > Domestic policy. The differences were much
> narrower in the 50s and
> > early 60s.
>
>
> well, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, they used
> to shoot at each other.
>
> but i guess if what the number crunchers say is
> true, i want to know why
> we're always so disappointed in dem voting patterns?
> and even when we're
> not, i want to say that a lot of votes these days
> are essentially
> meaningless -- they're about going on record as
> having voted for/against
> something, not about actually getting anything done.
> it's sort of difficult
> to imagine that such strategies are innovations of
> the last 50 years, but
> maybe easier than believing against the apparent
> evidence that the parties
> differ more now than they did 50 years ago.
>
> on the other hand, not only is the country pretty
> polarized in some
> important ways, but the geographical alignment is
> becoming significant.
> perhaps a new sectionalism or something (why do i
> think ruy texeira has done
> something on this? if i had more energy at the
> moment i would try to track
> it down). and surely that is going to be reflected
> significantly in the
> house and even sometimes in the senate. do the vote
> and base analyses you're
> talking about go down to the state level? i'm
> guessing not, but it would be
> interesting to see.
>
> i'm willing to be persuaded that my general sense of
> convergence is
> mistaken, but i'd need to have my perception made
> sense of somehow by the
> statistical analysis, and i'm not there, yet.
>
> j
>
> --
> "Science seems to be at war with itself.... *Naive
> realism leads to physics,
> and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be
> false. Therefore naive
> realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false."
> -- Bertrand Russell
>
> *http://brainmortgage.blogspot.com/
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