Why is the United States a marginally Republican nation? The goofy left-wing (and, yes, there is a sane left-wing) thinks it's because of the conspiracy between Bush, the right-wing-media, big oil, and I think Iran-Contra has something to do with it. Then there is the wrong, but not totally goofy, "What's the matter with Kansas" thesis that somehow low and moderate income people are being distracted from voting their economic interests (which presumably means voting Democratic) by all these meaningless social issues like abortion and gay marriage. I try to teach my students that voters vote based on their perception of their self-interest, and that peole are pretty good at judging their own interests. Steve Sailer has an amazing piece up suggesting that those areas that are friendly to the formation of families are Republican, and those areas hostile to family formation are Democratic. If you trace where homes are affordable, you'll find a high correlation between low housing prices and Republican voting. Democrats have to come to grips with why they are loosing the votes of those who are married, have children in the house, and go to church each week. Sailer explains this. It isn't because the Republicans are pulling the wool over their eyes; it's because the Republicans are responding to their interests. Note: Sailer is affiliated with Pat Buchanan's American Conservative magazine. That makes him suspect in my book, but I still think his analysis is sound. Sailer writes:
As I first reported in VDARE.COM last December, the single best correlation with Bush's share of the vote by state that anybody has yet found is: the average years married by white women between age 18 and 44: an astonishing r-squared = 83 percent.
(This has to be one of the highest r-squareds for a single factor ever seen in political science.)
Bush carried the top 25 states ranked on "years married."
Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg confirmed the partisan power of the Marriage Gap in January, reporting:
"The marriage gap is one of the most important cleavages in electoral politics… The marriage gap is a defining dynamic in today’s politics, eclipsing the gender gap, with marital status a significant predictor of the vote, independent of the effects of age, race, income, education or gender."
According to Greenberg, the exit poll showed Bush carried merely 44% of the single white females but 61% of the married white women—a 17 point difference.
Among white men, Bush won 53% of the singles and 66% of the married—a 13 point difference.
Although there are profound cultural differences among states, the Marriage Gap among whites is driven to a striking extent by the Mortgage Gap.
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