Ask Auntie Pinko
November 21, 2001

Dear Auntie Pinko,

This begins with two observations, but I swear there's questions at the end of it all.

One is that, while the Republicans are often classified as the party of the rich, only one wealthy state actually tends to vote Republican (Texas), and while the Democrats are classified as the party of the poor, only one poor state voted Democratic in 2000 (New Mexico).

Another observation is that some of the most liberal, racially tolerant states tend to be places with almost no minority population (like Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont, etc. The exception is the west coast, where non-whites are almost half the population). By contrast, only two states with high non-white populations tend to vote Democratic: New Mexico and Hawaii.

So here's my questions:

1. Why do rich states vote for the poor man's party, and vice versa?

2. Why are the more racially homogeneous states more liberal than the more diverse ones?

Craig,
Burke, VA

Dear Craig,

Heaven help us! There are so many unfounded assumptions and unsupported conclusions in your observations that Auntie Pinko hardly knows where to begin. Please don't take that criticism personally, though - you're in excellent company. Many of America's most prominent political commentators display the same naivete (or, in some cases, intellectual laziness or even downright disingenuousness.)

There are several faulty links in this chain of logic, but I'll focus on one-the assumption that "states" vote. There are two specific failures of critical thinking here. The first is the establishment of a false syllogism. Can we assume that because more states where people snowmobile regularly voted Democratic than Republican, there is a link between liberalism and snowmobiling? The co-occurrence of two factors does not necessarily establish causation.

The second problem with the assumption of "states voting" is generalizing beyond the level supported by your data. Particularly because of the Electoral College system, state-level data can't really support any specific political characterization Every state contains Democrats, Republicans, people affiliated with other parties, and those unaffiliated with any party. If 34 percent of the people in a state vote Democratic, 33 percent vote Republican, and 33 percent vote for various other parties, that state's electoral votes may read "Democratic," but does that support a characterization of the state as "Democratic?"

There is, certainly, some validity to the link between wealth and voting patterns. But clearly, there are other factors that are at least as important if not more so, than mere bank balance. In California, for example, two of the wealthiest areas are Marin County and Orange County. Marin is a solid Democratic vote, Orange County is probably one of America's safest Republican districts.

It might be more illuminating to study the specific characteristics of Marin Countians and Orange Countians to understand the factors that influence political ideologies and voting patterns, than to simply assign all the rich to one party and the poor to the other party.

With regards to racial homogeneity and liberalism, to pick an example you used, let's look at Minnesota, which you characterized as both "racially homogeneous" and "liberal." The majority of Minnesota's population - and certainly the most "liberal" elements of it, measuring by voting patterns and other factors, reside in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. That area is actually quite racially diverse, having large minority populations.

To compare, in some rural Minnesota communities that are highly racially homogeneous, the voting patterns are extremely conservative by virtually anyone's standards. So perhaps there's more to liberalism than racial homogeneity, don't you think?

Human beings are the most complicated animals on the planet, Craig. Auntie Pinko has always found oversimplification to be a dreadful error in attempting to understand us, and I hope that you'll take this response in a spirit of helpfulness.

Thank you for asking Auntie Pinko!

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