Is it time to resurrect the "Georgia will go blue" threads from 2008? (Atlanta: luxury, living in)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by lisacorsi

Could it be that the other states have more African Americans voting? I wonder what the percentages are..I'm sure I could find out but someone on here may know.

About 1/3 of Georgians are black. This would be very hard to happen, even if southern blacks voted at a lower rate.

[ATLHRLGUY]

Breakdown of the 2008 election by every category imaginable. Local Exit Polls - Election Center 2008 - Elections & Politics from CNN.com

This should give more insight on what demographics Obama and McCain each won.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Republicans are really solidifying their position. If they get enough votes to amend the Constitution they can really make some huge, permanent changes.

If that happens, the State of Georgia will suffer in the long run. Constitutional changes driven by single-party policies are generally DANGEROUS.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte

The question I want to ask is: What do you think is the main factor for such political divides in the South based on race versus in many northern states? Why doesn't this political divide exist to such a level in many northern states, such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the states I mentioned in my last post?

I'm speaking as a native Minnesotan here, so I may have a bias, but...

First, black/white polarization is generally a non-issue in MN, and that state has very little history (comparatively speaking) of black/white polarization. Native Americans get the brunt of racist attitudes up there in rural areas, and while the black population is much smaller in the Twin Cities metro, it also tends to be more integrated into the population as a whole, and you don't see the division between the two races you see here in Atlanta. Some of that is surely a function of the sheer numbers of black people here, but some of it is the result of local history.

Also keep in mind that MN has historically been a bastion of socialist and even a certain level of communist thinking (meaning communism in its pure sense, not in the sense implemented by the USSR, DDR, etc.) The Democratic party is called the DFL up there (Democratic Farmer Labor party) for a reason ... unions were very strong in the iron range, Minnesota was the birthplace of people like Charles Lindbergh, and as others have said the Scandinavian heritage of a large portion of the population provides a push for education and for a level of cooperative government that I really haven't seen in Georgia.

Iowa and Wisconsin may have similar roots and reasoning.

I've always viewed California and Oregon as flake liberals or granola liberals, while MN is full of collaborative and pragmatic liberals. A very different flavor, and something which creates a very different atmosphere from what you see down here.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Obama is not making it easy on his peeps out here.

He isn't good at communicating in sound bites. He uses complex sentences, and this confuses the general voting public.

I wish I was joking. Seriously, Mr. President, you need better PR guys to counter the crap being spewed by the opposition.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by arjay57

The recent election makes me wonder if Georgia is losing its progressive reputation. These charts have been making the rounds in email and I don't know who made them, but is this how our state is perceived?

Since when has Georgia had a progressive reputation except in its own mind?

Seriously?

Maybe compared to its immediate neighbors, but one could easily argue that

(1) being relatively progressive in the south isn't really saying much, and

(2) some of that progressiveness is due to the influence of transplants to the state of Georgia from more progressive areas of the country.

Look at the fragmentation here on multiple levels (metro and state). Atlanta, and Georgia, are both still a collection of self-interested fiefdoms, just like things were in the plantation days, and each of those fiefdoms wants its own cut of the pie seemingly without regard for the state as a whole.

That is emphatically not an enlightened attitude on the part of those in power.

Until the Atlanta metro, or the state of Georgia, can govern itself effectively as a single entity, it's going to have a hard time. Minnesota doesn't have water issues due to its geography, but if it did I don't think it would be totally ignoring them like we've seen down here recently, and I think the difference between Atlanta and the Twin Cities in terms of transportation is going to be dramatically demonstrated over the next 20 years as Minneapolis and St Paul team up to create a regional rail system that will end up dwarfing MARTA.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

...
I've always viewed California and Oregon as flake liberals or granola liberals, while MN is full of collaborative and pragmatic liberals. A very different flavor, and something which creates a very different atmosphere from what you see down here.

Well said--that's my viewpoint as well.


What would you call the liberals of the Northeast?

[WilliamM]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

Since when has Georgia had a progressive reputation except in its own mind?

Exactly the point. To the extent that the state's governing ideology boasts that it's "progressive" - doubtful since it's become such a dirty word lately in some quarters - that would amount to a case of Orwellian distortion if ever I've seen one. So I agree with your observations here by and large. The only slight disagreement I may have involves Minnesota itself, where I may not be as optimistic as you on whether anything like a progressive tradition will ultimately prevail, in the near term anyway. As far as I can see, that state appears to be just as split between the forces of progressivism and its enemies as this one is, albeit with an entirely different role played in that split by race as you rightly point out. Therein lies perhaps the main difference between the two states.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

If that happens, the State of Georgia will suffer in the long run. Constitutional changes driven by single-party policies are generally DANGEROUS.

I should clarify this statement of mine.

Constitutional changes are dangerous, in my opinion, because they tend to be much harder to reverse than similar rules which are codified into law using the more traditional legislative processes.

This means that potential mistakes are much harder to correct after the fact, and anyone who is involved with complex human endeavors will probably agree that humans are anything but infallible when codifying something which is both abstract and highly complex, be it a computer program, a law, or a change to the constitution which provides the base set of operational definitions for some level of government.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

I'm speaking as a native Minnesotan here, so I may have a bias, but...

First, black/white polarization is generally a non-issue in MN, and that state has very little history (comparatively speaking) of black/white polarization. Native Americans get the brunt of racist attitudes up there in rural areas, and while the black population is much smaller in the Twin Cities metro, it also tends to be more integrated into the population as a whole, and you don't see the division between the two races you see here in Atlanta. Some of that is surely a function of the sheer numbers of black people here, but some of it is the result of local history.

Also keep in mind that MN has historically been a bastion of socialist and even a certain level of communist thinking (meaning communism in its pure sense, not in the sense implemented by the USSR, DDR, etc.) The Democratic party is called the DFL up there (Democratic Farmer Labor party) for a reason ... unions were very strong in the iron range, Minnesota was the birthplace of people like Charles Lindbergh, and as others have said the Scandinavian heritage of a large portion of the population provides a push for education and for a level of cooperative government that I really haven't seen in Georgia.

Iowa and Wisconsin may have similar roots and reasoning.

I've always viewed California and Oregon as flake liberals or granola liberals, while MN is full of collaborative and pragmatic liberals. A very different flavor, and something which creates a very different atmosphere from what you see down here.

Minnesota has always been different politically.Minnesota is pretty much a blue state with some socialist leanings, but you also have more political parties in Minnesota, allowing for some room for more political activity among the population. Part of what is called of moralistic political culture, where political activity is considered a civic duty, for everyone to do. Georgia is very traditionalist in its political culture. Historically, there has been "good old boy" things going on.

As for the race issue, this does have some historical roots. Historically, Blacks in the South have been denied the right to vote and were considered "competition" for some people. For this reason, there have been many ways to keep Black people in the South from competing politically or participating in the political arena. In a way, the racial polarization isn't that surprising. Different interests rooted in history.