KC Politics (Kansas City, Jackson, Republic: home, college, taxes)

[ryanswindle]

I know politics are a touchy subject but I'm just curious if somebody could tell me what the personal political landscape is like there just for my own heads up when I get there.

For example, living in Pittsburgh right now, I've found out that Oakland being the college area is of course more liberal generally, but everywhere else in Pittsburgh (that I've seen in my 5 months here) is very conservative. But more detail would be helpful, such as here they are big on gun rights due to the avid hunting community, though on the other end they seem to have stong support for unions here.

Then on the other hand I know Denver is progressively liberal on social and legal issues, but has a very fiscally conservative nature and anti-union/pro-market, though when you step into Boulder every single issue falls way left of center. Then you go into Littleton and the politics are similar to the rest of the Denver metro, except, there's more social conservatism of the focus on the family sort, not extreme though.

Could anybody maybe give me kind of a break down of KC regarding the issues, and any areas which are exceptions like this?

Obviously I would have to guess Lawrence is more progressively liberal than the rest of the area, but I have no idea where KC culturally lands on these sorts of things.

Please keep the subjective right and wrong out, just a general social/fiscal/union/markets/civil description of moderate/moderate-conservative/moderate-liberal/liberal etc.

Thankyou to anybody who can draw this sort of picture for me! Please keep it as objective as possible!

[famusdarlin]

In general I think the Kansas side, Johnson County specifically tends to be mor conservative. Midtown/ Brookside you will find to be the most liberal part of the city. South Kansas city would lean toward liberal. The other suburbs lean toward conservative. It's the bible belt, so alot of Christian political perspectives reign. In the more rural suburbs the politics get more conservative, stronger "Christian Values", and they do beleive in their guns. In general terms.

[kcmo]

Metro KC is pretty liberal. KCMO south of the river is as blue as any large city. Some of the outer suburbs can get pretty conservative, but even most of Johnson County can go either way. I would even say tht JoCo inside the 435 beltway is more liberal than conservative. Overall, I think the metro leans liberal. Yes, Lawrence is as well. Once you get out of the city and inner suburbs you are in serious conservative land though. So much that rural MO (and many large outer suburban areas) are able to overtake Kansas City and St Louis in total votes and make MO a "red" state and outstate Kansas is able to destory any chances of Douglas, Wyandotte and even Johnson County's chances of changing Kansas to Blue.

[skrizzle]

Originally Posted by ryanswindle

I know politics are a touchy subject but I'm just curious if somebody could tell me what the personal political landscape is like there just for my own heads up when I get there.

For example, living in Pittsburgh right now, I've found out that Oakland being the college area is of course more liberal generally, but everywhere else in Pittsburgh (that I've seen in my 5 months here) is very conservative. But more detail would be helpful, such as here they are big on gun rights due to the avid hunting community, though on the other end they seem to have stong support for unions here.

Then on the other hand I know Denver is progressively liberal on social and legal issues, but has a very fiscally conservative nature and anti-union/pro-market, though when you step into Boulder every single issue falls way left of center. Then you go into Littleton and the politics are similar to the rest of the Denver metro, except, there's more social conservatism of the focus on the family sort, not extreme though.

Could anybody maybe give me kind of a break down of KC regarding the issues, and any areas which are exceptions like this?

Obviously I would have to guess Lawrence is more progressively liberal than the rest of the area, but I have no idea where KC culturally lands on these sorts of things.

Please keep the subjective right and wrong out, just a general social/fiscal/union/markets/civil description of moderate/moderate-conservative/moderate-liberal/liberal etc.

Thankyou to anybody who can draw this sort of picture for me! Please keep it as objective as possible!

The urban core is very liberal. VERY liberal. From the River Market to Westport and well even other surrounding areas, very very liberal.

The burbs... i'd say are moderate-conservative. I don't meet to many extremely conservative people, though they do of course exist.

[TabulaRasa]

The biggest noteworthy thing to me is that the core comes off as both liberal AND fairly staunchly religious, which many people from other areas may find odd and something of an oxymoron. As a churchgoing liberal (non-evangelical, however, which puts me outside what seems to be the main MO churchgoing contingent loop), myself, though, I'm definitely aware that the two are not mutually exclusive. But KC is truly as openly evangelically religious an urban community as I've lived in - bearing in mind that I've not lived in any southern cities.

[GraniteStater]

^
Wikipedia includes most of Missouri in the Bible Belt so that is not too surprising.
Also, KC attracts lots of residents who grew up in very small farm towns so that also has an impact on the overall religious climate.

[TabulaRasa]

I grew up in a very small farm town, myself - though not in MO...however, I'm not a religious conservative, I'm both a person of faith and a liberal. We do exist. Just not in droves in MO, apparently. As evidenced by the very limited number of congregations in my denomination that even EXIST in KCMO. I'd do much better at finding a church home were I an evangelical, even in the liberal-ish core.

[TinaMcG]

Originally Posted by famusdarlin

In general I think the Kansas side, Johnson County specifically tends to be mor conservative. Midtown/ Brookside you will find to be the most liberal part of the city. South Kansas city would lean toward liberal. The other suburbs lean toward conservative. It's the bible belt, so alot of Christian political perspectives reign. In the more rural suburbs the politics get more conservative, stronger "Christian Values", and they do beleive in their guns. In general terms.

Johnson County was the only Kansas county to go for Obama in the presidential election, and we also have a Democratic congressional representative. By and large, it's pretty conservative and pretty Republican, but being from Chicago and well....a Democrat...I was surprised to not feel out of place when we moved here.

[BostonToKC]

Originally Posted by TinaMcG

Johnson County was the only Kansas county to go for Obama in the presidential election, and we also have a Democratic congressional representative. By and large, it's pretty conservative and pretty Republican, but being from Chicago and well....a Democrat...I was surprised to not feel out of place when we moved here.

The part you wrote about Obama winning JOCO is wrong. McCain beat Obama by (I believe) a 54-45 margin in JOCO. This is, however much better than most of the rest of Kansas. Obama did win Wyandotte (naturally) and Douglas counties.

[OneKC]

Johnson County is made of mostly of fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters - they tend to actually be more liberal on stuff like gay marriage and abortion (although there are still a good number of very conservative voters on those issues), but they generally want low taxes, less government. Northeast Johnson County tends to be more liberal, while south Johnson County, particularly Olathe, tends to be pretty conservative.

Wyandotte County is probably more socially conservative, but fiscally liberal, since its made up of less affluent residents, but has high Hispanic/Catholic populations. They tend to be for more government programs, but can be quite pro-life.

Kansas City downtown/midtown is pretty liberal, particularly in Brookside, although you do have pockets of conservative voters, particularly those from very wealthy families (Bush had a private fundraiser in Brookside...OTOH, Obama spoke at the DNC from a home in Brookside)

North of the river tends to be more conservative. Eastern Jackson County is more conservative, especially the further east you go. Matt Bartle is a state legislator representing that area, and he is one of the most conservative members of the Missouri House.

I think we are more conservative generally than many metro areas, but we're still pretty liberal, as most metro areas are.