Why have Oregon and Washington become so *-friendly?

[mot78]

They were both carried by even Dukakis in '88, yet they're now considered swing states. Did the Reaganite Californians move up there?

[swag]

1. A few factors as far as Oregon goes

A rabid pseudo-libertarian, corrosive, anti-tax activism that has captivated some of the populace, and left schools and other vital programs terribly underfunded (and see immediately below)

The same lack of education and reading skills that plagues the rest of the nation,

Migration of unemployed congenital Repubs to the cities,

Abdication by the news media of their obligation to inform and educate.

Nevertheless, the Proud Gomorrah that is Multnomah County will again prevail in November 2004.

[movonne]

2. My opinion is that these areas are packed with the militia types

and also there is lots of rural areas which tend to be Rush type people. The larger cities where more of the liberals are.

[mitchtv]

5. I think a lot of it is so called"christians"

we know them as fundies

[Generator]

8. No most of it is the rural unpopulated side of the state

I live in Portland. I think that OR is known to have one of the lowest (if not the lowest) church attendences in the country. People spend their time outdoors. Something about being around other people makes you more tolerant. Mulnomah county is so liberal in fact we voted IN a county tax. But we will never have a sales tax, and I agree because I hate sales taxes.

Bush is not going to win out here. He didn't win last time, and he can't smell the wind apparently this time because as we saw last night Nader couldn't get on the ballot. No time to play, you should see the anti-war, anti-Bush demonstrations around here.

[West Coast Democrat]

3. Nader has been a factor

that's why they're considered swing states.

[togiak]

4. Swing States?

I think that Oregon is more of a swing state than WA. But the basic demography in OR and WA is very conservative rural areas east of the Cascade mountains and very liberal urban areas west of the Cascades.

In OR the population split is pretty close between liberal and conservative but in WA the liberals still hold the population advantage by a pretty good margin.

[swag]

6. In defense of Oregon

I must say that we have fended off one after another of nutjob anti-gay initiatives and the like. We voted for the real winner in the 2000 Presidential election, and I believe we will do it again in 2004. But we do need that Kerry advertising and Demo activism.

http://contribute.johnkerry.com

[Feanorcurufinwe]

7. They haven't -- it's false media spin promoted by Bushco.

[AntiCoup2K4]

9. It's a myth that Washington & Oregon are a "liberal paradise"

Sure, you have definite pockets of liberalism, such as the Puget Sound region (Olympia to Seattle) in Washington and Portland and Eugene in Oregon, and thankfully these are the areas with the highest population density. But aside from that, there are some horribly right wing folks around here. Washington's 5th district elected George "Duncecap" Nethercutt, a man so stupid he actually thought HE became Speaker of the House because he beat Tom Foley. And Oregon had a group called the Oregon Citizen's Alliance (who also attempted to move into Washington) who were so hatefully homophobic Fred Phelps would have been proud.

Now as to how this effects the current election, I will be blatantly honest. This is NOT Kerry country! Not by a long shot. I don't care what the very dubious results of the caucuses said, nor do I want to debate them here, but just saying factually that you couldn't find a Kerry supporter in Western Washington a week before those caucuses. Dean and Kucinich were the favored candidates around here. My projection would be that most of the Dean voters might vote for Kerry if his running mate isn't too ridiculously right wing, or if he doesn't appear to be co-opting too much of the PNAC agenda. The Kucinich crowd is another story. I would say that a good percentage of them voted Green/other/not at all in the last election and might just repeat that again if they don't feel Kerry is good enough.

Then you have the other factor of centrist/moderate Repubs who might have supported Dean as a fiscal conservative with a pro gun record, but who buy into the obviously exaggerated portrayal of Kerry as a "tax and spend Massachussettes liberal". Some of these folks might actually vote for the Dipshit again just for that reason.

That about sums up the political situation here in the Pacific Northwest. I would say it's Kerry's to lose. Hope he doesn't try to hard to do so.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

11. The 'dubious results of the caucuses' ?? LOL

I find your political analysis to be a lot more dubious that the caucus results.


"you couldn't find a Kerry supporter in Western Washington a week before those caucuses"

I have the feeling you weren't looking, LOL.

[jsw_81]

13. "Dean and Kucinich were the favored candidates around here."

Nonsense. Kerry won virtually every single precinct in Washington, including mine.

[rinsd]

10. Quick stats

In Oregon:

In 92 Clinton won though Perot got about 24%

In 96 Clinton beat the tar out of Dole

2000 Election:

Gore: 720,342
Bush: 713,577

That's pretty close.

In Washington:

Fairly similar including Perot doing well in 92.

2000 Election:

Gore: 1247652
Bush: 1108864

Not as close but not a huge margin of victory.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Until the mid 1980s

Oregon was home to a lot of liberal Republicans. The state's famous environmental and land use laws were instituted by Republicans, believe it or not.

I think that clumsy framing of the environmental movement caused some of the rural Republicans to go libertarian. The timber companies were already shedding jobs due to automation, but newer, stricter environmental laws allowed them to shift the blame onto "those tree huggers." Environmentalists tried to use the Endangered Species Act, specifically protection of the spotted owl, to prevent clear cutting.

This allowed the timber companies' propagandists to proclaim that environmentalists, and therefore Democrats, "liked owls better than people." They ran tearjerking TV ads about a family who had to move away from their hometown because the environmentalists had ruined the forest industries. They ran other TV ads about how it was okay to clearcut multi-species old growth forests because Weyerhaeuser and Georgia-Pacific replanted the area in neat rows of little Douglas fir seedlings.

Now there are many reasons to be against clearcutting, including water quality and prevention of landslides. Environmentalists could have asked the pointed question, "Where will the jobs go when all the old growth is gone in x number of years?" but they didn't give these factors enough publicity, so the media kept talking about "jobs versus owls."

Rural Oregon is more libertarian than Republican. It's largely secular, and the state has voted overwhelmingly for measures such as assisted suicide and medical marijuana. On these two topics, their interests coincide with those of the left-liberals in Portland and Eugene.

In all other areas, however, the libertarian streak has damaged the state tremendously: the schools are falling apart, people are literally dying for losing their former state benefits, the once glorious state parks are being closed or allowed to deteriorate, and all the Republicans do is gripe about how their taxes are so high, this in a state with no sales tax and a top income tax rate of 9%.