Text 18356, 96 rader
Skriven 2006-03-15 20:42:22 av Alan Hess
Ärende: analysis of political divide
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The title of this seems inflammatory, but the column is interesting.
*****

washingtonpost.com

What Kind of Hater Are You?

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; A19

Consider the portraits that Republicans and Democrats paint of each other. They
explain much of the loathing in our politics.

Democrats see Republicans as a collection of pampered rich people who selfishly
seek to cut their own taxes, allied with religious fundamentalists who want to
use government power to impose a narrow brand of Christianity on everyone else.

Republicans see Democrats as godless, overeducated elitists who sip lattes as
they look down their noses at the moral values of "real Americans" in "the
heartland" and ally themselves with "special interest groups" that benefit from
"big government."

Notice that each side is waging a class war in condemning the other as
nauseatingly privileged. Yes, these are both parodies. But parodies are weapons
in political battles, so it's important to assess the relative truth of each
side's claims.

Begin by dismissing the claim that the economically privileged have become
Democrats. In the 2004 election, according to the main media exit poll,
President Bush won 63 percent of the votes cast by Americans in households
earning over $200,000 a year, and 57 percent from those in the $100,000 to
$200,000 range. All things being equal, wealthier people vote Republican.

But conservatives counter that Democrats are the party of choice in swank,
well-educated latte enclaves: suburban Boston, New York and Philadelphia;
Montgomery County, Md.; and Microsoftland around Seattle, Silicon Valley and
Hollywood. John Kerry's blue states are, on the whole, richer than George
Bush's red states.

All true -- meaning what, exactly? One of the hottest political science papers
floating around the political world and the Web comes close to solving the
mystery of how Democrats can do so well in certain well-off places and still
not be the party of the rich.

The paper has a fetching title: "Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state:
What's the matter with Connecticut?" Dr. Seuss, who wrote "One Fish, Two Fish,
Red Fish, Blue Fish," meets Tom Frank, the author of the influential book
"What's the Matter With Kansas?"

The authors -- Andrew Gelman of Columbia University, Boris Shor of the
University of Chicago, Joseph Bafumi of Dartmouth and David Park of Washington
University in St. Louis -- show, through careful statistical analysis, how
several things can be true at the same time.

Yes, Bush carried a lot of poor states -- but with heavy support from the rich
people who lived in them. The class war is being waged more fiercely in the
Republican states than in the Democratic states. The income divide is
especially sharp in the South, where it is reinforced by a strong racial
divide.

"In poor states," Gelman and his colleagues write, "rich people are much more
likely than poor people to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but
in rich states (such as Connecticut), income has almost no correlation with
vote preference. . . . In poor states, rich people are very different from poor
people in their political preferences. But in rich states, they are not."

This suggests that our country may be even more polarized and divided than we
thought. Not only do red and blue states vote differently, but they cast their
votes according to different patterns.

The paper's authors also take a nice swipe at the media, arguing that reporters
tend to overemphasize the role of rich Democrats in elections. Why?
Journalists, they write, "noticed a pattern (richer counties supporting the
Democrats) that is concentrated in the states where the journalists live,"
notably the environs of Washington and New York. The class polarization in such
deep red states as Oklahoma, Texas and Mississippi goes largely unreported.

Gelman and his colleagues help us understand why southern Democrats such as
Bill Clinton and John Edwards may be more attuned to the power of populism than
Northern Democrats such as John Kerry -- and, perhaps, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Their paper also helps explain why Southern Republicans such as President Bush
pursue policies that are hugely beneficial to their wealthy base even as they
try to diminish the political impact of class warfare by shifting the argument
to other subjects: religion, values or national security.

The divide in American politics is about more than the ideological distance
between the two parties. Right now red-staters and blue-staters live in two
different political universes. It's no wonder that political moderation is out
of fashion -- though the winner of the 2008 round may be the person who can
scramble the patterns of Dr. Seussian politics.

postchat@aol.com
+ 2006 The Washington Post Company

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