So Many Moving to Tennessee WHATS THE EFFECT? (Chattanooga, Johnson City: rental, to buy)

[Elrod]

Originally Posted by hiknapster

I wouldn't worry about it. I'm a bleeding heart liberal from Massachusetts. And I love it here and most of those things appeal to me, too. I guess I'm really more of a moderate!

Good to hear. I've never really bought into the whole red state/blue state thing. My politics are moderately "blue" - mostly because we get only two choices in this country - but I often find myself more comfortable in "red" settings. I've lived in hard-core "blue" areas where people's politics mirror mine but they have no desire to look beyond their narrow worlds.

TN is really a reddish-purple state based on recent elections, and partisan voting doesn't always reflect ideology. Lamar Alexander isn't much more conservative than Lincoln Davis. Howard Baker wasn't much more conservative than Jim Sasser. Outside the extremes like Ed Bryant on the right and Steve Cohen on the left, Tennessee is pretty solidly center-right overall. It'll never be Georgia or Alabama and it'll never be New York or Illinois.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Elrod

Good to hear. I've never really bought into the whole red state/blue state thing. My politics are moderately "blue" - mostly because we get only two choices in this country - but I often find myself more comfortable in "red" settings. I've lived in hard-core "blue" areas where people's politics mirror mine but they have no desire to look beyond their narrow worlds.

TN is really a reddish-purple state based on recent elections, and partisan voting doesn't always reflect ideology. Lamar Alexander isn't much more conservative than Lincoln Davis. Howard Baker wasn't much more conservative than Jim Sasser. Outside the extremes like Ed Bryant on the right and Steve Cohen on the left, Tennessee is pretty solidly center-right overall. It'll never be Georgia or Alabama and it'll never be New York or Illinois.

Tennessee is not that "purple." Half of the Democrat votes come from two places: Memphis and Nashville. Since you'll be at Maryville College, you'll be surrounded by fellow blue state types, but the rest of Blount County and East Tennessee (except around U.T.) is solidly red. The only GOP freshman senator in the last elections came from TN, and sometimes it was hard to tell the difference beteween him and his Democrat opponent because they both campaigned as conservatives. Same goes for Heath Shuler just over the mountains in NC who defeated a GOP incumbent, but only by making himself out to be more conservative than the GOP guy.

[Elrod]

Originally Posted by JMT

Tennessee is not that "purple." Half of the Democrat votes come from two places: Memphis and Nashville. Since you'll be at Maryville College, you'll be surrounded by fellow blue state types, but the rest of Blount County and East Tennessee (except around U.T.) is solidly red. The only GOP freshman senator in the last elections came from TN, and sometimes it was hard to tell the difference beteween him and his Democrat opponent because they both campaigned as conservatives. Same goes for Heath Shuler just over the mountains in NC who defeated a GOP incumbent, but only by making himself out to be more conservative than the GOP guy.

But that's true for many northern states too. Where do you think most of the Democratic votes in Illinois come from? Chicago. How about Michigan? Detroit. Take those cities out and you have Indiana. Democratic voters tend to be more urban (for both whites and minorities) and Republican voters less urban (rural or exurban/outer suburban). That's why those national red/blue county maps look almost entirely red even though the percentage difference was tiny overall.

As for conservative Dems in TN and NC, you're absolutely right. Ironically, the only real ideological shift in TN's delegation to Congress came not from Corker replacing Frist but from Steve Cohen replacing Harold Ford in TN-09. Cohen is a bona fide liberal Democrat; Ford is not. The TN delegation actually shifted slightly to the left this year along with that of many other states - even though Corker beat Ford in the Senate race.

I will say that while Shuler is culturally conservative, he is solidly pro-labor. His first speech after his election was with new Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and some Teamster head. The race over there had to do with economics, not culture.

[Tek_Freek]

In two thousand words...

[MomsTn]

Hey, that's what my backyard looked like a couple of days ago.
The weather man said there's another storm coming.

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

In two thousand words...

[Elrod]

Where's that picture from? Honestly, snow falling can be quite beautiful. But when it gets to late winter and the snow falls lightly every day and the sky is always gray...well, it gets depressing. I'm talking about Michigan of course. I love the snow in December: Christmas fever, snowball fights, snowmen, sledding, etc. But when March comes around? Yuk.

[MomsTn]

I'm not sure where TekFreek is right now, but, we are in Minnesota.
When my Dad was stationed in Michigan, we lived in the U.P., so, I know snow.
I like it when it snows, and then, melts a couple of days later.
Unfortunetly, Minnesota only has two seasons... winter, and road construction.
It's kind of hard sometimes, to figure out when the other seasons begin, because the winters last so long.

Originally Posted by Elrod

Where's that picture from? Honestly, snow falling can be quite beautiful. But when it gets to late winter and the snow falls lightly every day and the sky is always gray...well, it gets depressing. I'm talking about Michigan of course. I love the snow in December: Christmas fever, snowball fights, snowmen, sledding, etc. But when March comes around? Yuk.

[birdiemom]

This is the best thing about living in America, the whole country belongs to us all! We don't have a government that tells us where we must live. We don't have a government that won't let us share our ideas...
GOTTA LOVE THE WHOLE USA...







QUOTE=LauraC;401926]I'm thinking of taking a vacation in Florida next year wearing a tee shirt that says "OAK RIDGE - HOME OF NUKES!" Every once and awhile I'll twitch for the desired effect.

I say we keep talking about snakes, spiders, coyotes, bats...have to think about some previous threads...tornadoes, earthquakes, icy curvy mountain roads, traffic, air quality in Knoxville, not enough sunny days...still thinking...people who invite you to church against your will and/or people that are tooooo nice so you suspect ulterior motives, people who socialize with their church meaning you are left out, "stupid" dry counties, corporal punishment in schools, jailing bad parents with absentee kids, schools that don't take your parental "helpful suggestions"...no gun control, smoking all over the place so you might have to take your business elsewhere, watermelon seed spitting contests, square/buck dancing, rampant Yankee baiting/teasing/ignoring even though you're so wonderful/smarter/tolerant than them, predominantly Republican registered East Tennessee, hunting, no Meagers or whatever the name of that store was that started with an M...still thinking...I CAN'T BELIEVE THERE'S A TAX ON FOOD! even though I don't pay state income tax, some places with no broadband, "good old boys" only get hired and they passed up my sterling "I'm a highly educated professional" 20 different jobs resume to hire a guy who has lived here all of his life, not enough high-end retail stores, lower wage jobs, polite men that treat you like a lady and you don't know how to handle that, non diet conscious people who offend your eyesight, people with missing teeth that offend your eyesight, people with southern accents that offend your ears, men who sit in pick up trucks and, you know, sit there, too many country music stations...and HORRORS, poor people that have lived there all the years of their life who might be living in the general vicinity of where you want to build a house.

Have I missed anything?[/quote]

[JMT]

Originally Posted by TNBound

Hey, that's what my backyard looked like a couple of days ago.
The weather man said there's another storm coming.

Great pictures! It's very beautiful, and I wish we'd get just one--JUST ONE--good snowstorm here. We've had snowstorms before in the month of March, but I'm willing to bet we're done for the year. sigh

[Tek_Freek]

but you do not want a storm like this. 60 counties in Eastern Iowa have been declared Disaster Areas. 140,000 without power initially. Thousands are not going to have power restored for a week or more, from today. And another storm is coming tomorrow that might be a repeat. Not a good thing.