It is less about economic class and more and more about race and ethnicity in American politics. And about religion.

is pointless without a beta. but even then you need to take into account that race and ethnicity are categorical, while economic class is more straightforwardly converted into quantitative metrics.

i expect follow up comments to utilize the simple ANES interface data. if not, keep your mouth shut. if i want to read an argument between franks vs. bartels/gelman, i’ll read them. they do a better job than you lot.

The intellectual elite: silicon valley, professors and students at the elite schools, Nobel laureates, scientists and engineers overwhelmingly vote Democrat. These elite are much less white anglo and much, much less evangelical christian than the rank and file of the Republican Party. A disproportional number are jews and asians. The lily white anglo Tea Party base of the Republicans is seen by such self-made meritocratic elites as racists, retards, losers and crackpots.

Upper. So jews i would susbstatiate your thesis i’m sure

But silicon valley and elite school graduates are generally white. I have no idea how their vote breaksdown but assumng they lean dem why would race, ethnicity, and religion be the salient factor?

The data from andrew gelman (that krugman references) shows that (outside the south) the correlation between the rich and republicans is weak, but it is there. I’m going on memory but I think gelman concludes that the salient factor is being socially liberal.

So, ironically, it is the upper classes in the north that are most likely to vote on social values (abortion, etc) not the working clases as has been assumed by dems (thomas frank). perhaps silicon valley and ivy leagers fall in that category.

or perhaps they see the dems in their economic interest (clean energy subisides for silicon valley). goldman sachs gives more money to dems.

What economic class do Jews, Silicon Valley and the alumni of the elite schools represent???

But at the end of the Day, no democrat since the fall of Jim Crow has gotten more than 50% of the white vote. So I don’t see how Obama failing to get there means too much.

http://www.slate.com/id/2204251/sidebar/2204308/

This is also not controlled for class and also deceptive without controlling for Party. You have to compare Obama to other Democrats.

Starting from 68…to give us space from Jim Crow, which artificially and dramatically inflates white vote totals for Dems, Obama has beaten every democrat who ran for office, though the 2 southerners beat him in 2 of their 4 races.

Humphrey: 38 McGovern: 31 Carter: 48 Carter: 36 Mondale: 34 Dukakis 40 Clinton : 39 Clinton : 44 Gore: 42 Kerry : 41

Obama got 43, leaving only Clinton and Carter in 2 of their 4 races who can claim to have bettered him among whites. Carter dominated the south and was endorsed by virtually every segregationist who filibustered the 64cra. So that skews his numbers. Clinton was able to pluck off many southern states due some clever southern strategizing.

2 is but it sounds like an outlier, and could be attributable to Obama subsidizing silicon valley via cleantech grants and more money for biotech companies. At the end of the day, here is Krugman on the subject (reference the massive data crunching of Larry Bartels):

“Contrary to what you may have read, the old-fashioned notion that rich people vote Republican, while poorer people vote Democratic, is as true as ever – in fact, more true than it was a generation ago.”

Regarding #5: “The Republican Red States are poorer, less educated and more fundamentalist christian than the liberal Blue States.” Here is Krugman summarizing Bartels again:

In fact, if you look at voting behavior, low-income whites in the South are not very different from low-income whites in the rest of the country. You can see this both in Larry Bartels’s “What’s the matter with What’s the Matter With Kansas?” (pdf), Figure 3, and in a comprehensive study of red state-blue state differences by Gelman et al (pdf).

This is an interesting nuance. The difference between the south and the rest of the country (post Jim Crow, of course) are their affluent voters, who vote overwhelmingly republican. In contrast, nono-southern affluent voters just lean repub. Democrats have for years focused on the working class due to their “whats the matter with Kansas” belief that poor whites are convinced to vote repub due to racism and other social issues, but ironically the real issue is rich southern whites.

It is less about economic class and more and more about race and ethnicity in American politics. And about religion.

1. Jews, the wealthiest and most successful ethnicity in the US, voted for Obama by a landslide.

2. Silicon Valley voted by a landslide for Obama.

3. Asians voted for Obama by a landslide.

4. Republicans are a small minority in the best colleges and universities.

5. The Republican Red States are poorer, less educated and more fundamentalist christian than the liberal Blue States.

6. Whites were the only major group that voted heavily against Obama, and if you exclude ethnic whites and off-whites, Obama probably lost by a landslide among lily-white white Anglos.