My friend Rob sent me the article “Eric Oliver on the Bigot Belt” from The Freakonomics Blog. In this post, the author looks at Republic Counties that went more red in 2008 compared to 2004, a trend that is frequently cited as being due to racism (an issue that some of the posts on this blog have discussed).

Erik Oliver, a professor at the University of Chicago, argues that ”the best predictor of a county’s Republican vote margin is its white racial percentage relative to its state’s black population size. In other words, the counties where Republican margins grew the largest tended to be predominantly white places in otherwise racially mixed states.”

The author links increased Republic voting to racist attitudes, but not in what we usually think of as the usual picture of racists featuring “poverty, low education, and rural residence underlie white racial animosity.” Instead, racism only leads to higher Republic voting in a very particular context:

“These patterns are consistent with research on individual racial attitudes. Historically, the greatest levels of racial violence occurred within white enclaves near larger black populations, particularly when these enclaves are poor and uneducated. Even today, whites who live in poor, racially segregated neighborhoods within more diverse metropolitan areas tend to be more racially hostile than whites who live in either integrated neighborhoods or within largely white regions.”

This theory of racism by juxtaposition and segregation is food for thought, Panhandler readers.

Check out some of the comments on the original post, people get really intense.

The guys over at the blog Strange Maps have come up with a great display demonstrating a modern effect of slavery on the contemporary US.  Check out these two maps, one detailing 2008 voting patterns, and the other detailing 1860 cotton production (bluer areas represent voting Democrat, redder areas Republican):

Cotton and Voting

And now a juxtaposition of the two:

Strange Map Overlay

The maps kind of speak for themselves, but what is most interesting is the extent of the geographic correlation.  Furthermore, turning to the Panhandle, one can see suggestive evidence for why the Tallahassee area tends to vote more Democratic.

I was sent an article in today’s New York Times (I know, NOT a Southern paper) describing potential ramifications of the Southern voting patterns we’ve been talking about here at The Panhandler’s Guide. Assuming a normal amount of political backlash, the article reads:

“What may have ended on Election Day, though, is the centrality of the South to national politics. By voting so emphatically for Senator John McCainover Mr. Obama — supporting him in some areas in even greater numbers than they did President Bush — voters from Texas to South Carolina and Kentucky may have marginalized their region for some time to come, political experts say . . .

. . .Less than a third of Southern whites voted for Mr. Obama, compared with 43 percent of whites nationally. By leaving the mainstream so decisively, the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy, experts say. . .

“Merle Black, an expert on the region’s politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said theRepublican Party went too far in appealing to the South, alienating voters elsewhere.”

As we’ve pointed out on this blog before, the question of race always goes hand-in-hand with analyses of voting in the South. One thing I think is interesting, bases on my research regarding race, is how the authors note the 5% increase in white voter support for McCain compared to Bush, yet what if it had been a 2% increase, or 10%? How much of an increase is needed to constitute the implied proof of growing racism? More importantly, how much did religious intolerance play into this increase in white pro-McCain voters? The article give a revealing quote: “I think any time you have someone elected president of the United States with a Muslim name, whether they are white or black, there are some very unsettling things,” George W. Newman, a director at a local bank and the former owner of a trucking business, said over lunch at Yellow Creek Fish and Steak.” I think this is a research project in need of pursuit: religious versus racial fears in the South.

To read the whole article, click here.

Jeff Wins 50¢ bet!

Brian loses just a little dignity.

It turns out that my prediction (sadly) was correct.  In this amazingly historic election, the panhandle has turned more red, not less, in response to the powerful campaigning of Barack Obama.  Here are the highlights:

Click to read more…

Check out this recent post from fivethirtyeight.com:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/72-hour-program.html

Does this mean I might lose my bet with Brian?

Jeff and Brian have both given great analysis of the presidential politics of the panhandle, and I can do little more than agree. Instead, I think it might be story time…

I remember election night 2000 like it was only yesterday.

It was my first semester at New College, and many of the students (almost all of whom were on the political left) were watching the returns in the conference center on campus. I had just left the Panhandle for college, and had even gone home two weeks earlier for fall break.

In a fit of what I guess was/is political independence, I registered no-party-affiliation in Florida. Florida has closed primaries, so I am not allowed to vote in any of them. Mostly, an NPA affiliation from the Panhandle means “somewhere left of Mao Tse-Tung,” which I can assure is not the case, personally…more or less
Click to read more…

Senator Barack Obama is taking this country by storm.  Every reliable predictive tool shows him well ahead nationally, and polls are showing him making substantial gains even in “red states” like Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana.  In some cases, states like Virginia are now polling with an Obama lead of 7%, when in 2004 that gave Bush an 8% lead (considerably more than his national vote-share advantage of ~2%).  But these facts are all over the news.  Here’s a real question for you:  Will my reliably conservative Okaloosa County (“the OC”) turn blue?

My best guess is: absolutely not.  Now, I’m not one who likes to profess opinions without relevant data.  Without access to polls or other relevant information, I know how prone the human mind is to simplification.  Demographic shifts since my time in “the OC” may change the composition of the electorate (although it would be hard to see the kind of demographic shift occurring in Okaloosa that would work in favor of Democrats).  Still, only based on my experience with the region, I would guess that not only will Obama not take Okaloosa County; he will not even change the vote share there by more than 5% from Bush’s 3-to-1 margin of victory in 2000. *(With the assumption that Bob Barr’s votes get to count toward McCain –a lame concession in a sense, but still nonetheless indicative of the OC’s “redness”)

Now, this may seem like a crazy prediction right?  You could easily say that, even if Okaloosa doesn’t like Obama, its staunchly-conservative views aren’t likely to align with McCain.  Also, we’ve seen places like Montana become a toss-up; and Montana voted 75% for Bush in 2000.  Okaloosa County is strongly influenced by the military; maybe Colin Powell’s powerful endorsement will change some minds?  Also, we’ve heard stories about how the terrible economy is making even blatantly racist individuals consider Obama.  So why am I so sure that the OC will go so red?  Let’s talk about some recent history.

Click to read more…