“Red Oregon” On The Way?” Perhaps Not
While I cannot claim a Pulitzer like The Willy’s Nigel Jaquiss, I can claim lots of political writing and commentary experience- regular appearances in the Huffington Post (Technorati’s seventh-ranked site by number of inbound links), Blue Oregon and other places. I even have a Poli Sci degree,for what that’s worth.
So I’ve been reading Nigel’s piece on what he feels is Oregon’s inexorable move from a “blue” (Democratic) state to a “red” (Republican) state.
I’ve also just read fellow Metblogger Aaron Hockley’s post here entitled Oregon: Redefining Red Politics. I have some issues with points raised by Nigel and Aaron.
I see some valid arguments, but others I would differ with.
Nigel seems to read the narrowing of the Dem’s party registration edge and the counterpart swelling of independents as an indicator this state is getting set to switch to a GOP preference. I’m not so sure about that. It seems that in many, if not most elections, the Independents swing toward the Democratic candidate. It may be that these Indies come from fairly new residents, who, in their independent leanings, reject all party labels. Heck, I know some (cough) Naderites who are Indies.
Also, Nigel tends to think that the population growth in booming areas such as Deschutes is automatically a boost for the GOP. Although some of the growth in Deschutes (Bend area) is fueled by affluent relocatees, there are a number of economically conservative yet socially liberal folks among these relocatees. You don’t see lots of religious fish stickers at Sunriver, for example. The more right our state GOP bends, the more the risk they run of losing these votes.
Not only Nigel, but our own Aaron Hockley has discussed the California migration issue. In his post Aaron seems to think that waves of California relocators from tech-rich affluent areas bring their Republican politics with them. I don’t know about that. Silicon Valley has been trending Democratic for years. Today’s socially tolerant (if economically libertarian) tech worker is not the arch-conservative thick-glasses technogeek of 20 years ago. And as to the conservative older retirees who are moving here, the reality is that some of them are replacing other older Oregon conservatives who can no longer vote because they have passed on.
And what about the trend that shows that Oregon youth tends to be more politically liberal than their elders? Can the trend line be ignored here as well?
Nigel,though, does have a good point in his contention that - inelegantly put- conservatives are more likely than liberals to have larger families. As opposed to the liberals in the city, some marry younger, some are less likely to practice contraception, some have a strong belief that the more children, the greater the blessing. Those children will likely grow up to be as politically conservative as their parents, and vote the same way.
What do you think? Are we going Red?
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God, I hope so.