US politics challenge

[luke warm]

No, I was thinking more along the lines of the guys and gals I grew up with, who make $20-50K a year, who sit in front of Fox News at night, drinking beer and nodding when Bill O'Reilly says, "Turn off his mike," who got school loans to go the local Junior College for two years because university cost too much, and who have been on unemployment benefits three times in the last 20 years, who have modest homes financed by Fannie Mae, ride the city bus to work and ride Amtrak to the ballpark on weekends, who like to fish on the reservoir created and maintained by the Corp of Engineers, who work for and own hospices that are Medicare funded and who then turn around and go on vacation to Washington, D.C. to Glenn Beck's Tea Party "Stop Big Government" rally while saying, "The government has never done anything for me."

 

Maybe I meant ignorant lower middle class instead of poor. ;)

 

(Btw, I know the person described. And yes, she did use her personal vacation time to go to Beck's rally, and yes she was employed by hospice.)

just to be clear then, when you say "uneducated poor" you don't really mean those who are uneducated nor those who are poor... just another in a long line of talking out your ass posts

[luke warm]

I like the stats. Apparently Ph.D.s (for example me) ~~~ vote Democratic.

only the poor and uneducated ones ;)

[Winstonm]

just another in a long line of talking out your ass posts

 

No doubt, but someone has to take up the mantle of the liberal "talking out your ass posts" as you have dominated the discussion thus far from the right wing aspect. :lol:

[hrothgar]

just to be clear then, when you say "uneducated poor" you don't really mean those who are uneducated nor those who are poor... just another in a long line of talking out your ass posts

 

There is a reason that I posted the "Red State, Blue State" article.

 

Gelman's notes the following

 

1. If you analyze data at a state wide level, rich states tend to vote for the Democratic Party. Poor states tend to vote for the Republican.

2. If you look at data at an individual level (look at individuals within a state), rich individuals vote for Republicans and relatively poor individuals vote for Democrats.

 

The key insight here is this is ALL a hell of a lot more complicated than the simplistic platitudes that both of you are provided.

Wide, sweeping generalities (and single variable models) have very little descriptive power.

 

As a practical example, let's consider "education".

 

Historically, there was a positive relationship between level of education and voting Republican.

White collar professionals tended to vote for Republicans.

 

More recently, this flip flopped.

Today, white collar professions are much more like to vote for Democrats than they did 30 years ago.

 

As a result, its pretty easy to pull a study that maps "Education" to voting patterns and assert whatever you damn well please.

 

At the end of the damn, the real models tend to be pretty complicated.

However, if you want a simple model that explains what's going on, the key variables to focus on are

 

1. Population density

2. Religious intensity

[Winstonm]

Richard,

 

I read the Gelman's red state/blue state article. It seemed to me that the most important point made was how voting dynamics have changed over the course of the past 10-15 years, especially in the wealthier states.

[cherdano]

Could people please stop posting to this thread? It's too disgusting to see the words "US politics" pop up these days, even if it's a watercooler thread I started myself.

[Winstonm]

Sure, we'll change the subject to European soccer-style kickers in the NFL. "I'm going to kick a touchdown! I'm going to kick a touchdown!" :o