Are you a pilgrim in an unholy land?

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

Somewhat inspired by Vern's International TSM'ers for Bush, I'm curious to know the political environment of your local area and how it jives with your personal beliefs.

 

I live in Westmoreland County, which is just to the east of Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located. Southwest PA is a Democrat hotbed, and Westmoreland County has traditionally been Democrat. However, in the last few elections it has been turning Republican, and I think the county went for W. this past election. There was also a big upset in this past election with a longtime liberal State Senator getting the boot for a Conservative Democrat that switched party affliation to face off with him in the general election. Although the area near the Westmoreland/Allegheny county line, which is where I live, is still strongly Democrat (I was the only person with a Bush sign in their front yard on the block, and oddly enough none of my neighbors talk to me), the more you drive into Westmoreland County the more Republican it becomes.

 

Anyone else want to share?...

[Special K 0]

Seattle. Extremely liberal. I'm basically libertarian, I think, so some of my shit doesn't jibe. I don't talk politics that much, though.

[Your Paragon of Virtue 0]

Socially conservative and economically liberal, so I don't fit in anywhere.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

My county is full of jesusy conservatives and psychotic hillbillies that vote for whoever gets the "gun-friendly" nod.

[Guest Loss]

Little Rock, AR. Longtime group of Southern Democrats that have gone Republican based on Bush's stand on issues like the war in Iraq, abortion and gay marriage. The most liberal areas of the state are smaller tourists towns like Hot Springs, Eureka Springs and Fayetteville. They're nothing like the rest of the state at all. Little Rock has a population of 175,000, and I see a Bush/Cheney '04 sticker every other car or so. Was always a battleground state here, but 9/11 put everyone in the area strongly behind Bush.

 

You can imagine how well I fit in here. Every other county is dry and alcohol isn't sold on Sundays. In fact, restaurants won't serve alcohol after 5PM because the Pentecosts who eat there after services have complained about their children seeing people drink beer. We have a very small, but very vocal gay population and most people's idea of diversity is knowing a Catholic person. Jewish people are just people that yankees talk about on TV. Most are quite racist here, including my own family. Feminists are usually blamed for just about everything.

 

Monopoly laws are probably broken all the time by Wal-Mart, and small businesses tend to sink here. We have five Wal-Marts within 10 miles of each other at one stretch, if that gives you any idea how much influence they have here. They actually have contracts with most cities that they'll pack up and leave if a Target or K-Mart moves into town. We have a Republican governor that almost everyone I know hates, liberal or conservative, that somehow keeps getting re-elected, but people tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat on all other local offices.

[bob_barron 0]

I'm a Republican living in Toronto taking a journalism programme. Everyone hates me

[Ted the Poster 0]

Plus, your spelling sucks. Oh, nevermind.

 

My county is the only overwhelmingly liberal one in the state.

[Red Baron 0]

I'm a Republican living in Toronto taking a journalism programme. Everyone hates me

Let me guess, you are going to Ryerson?

 

I'm in journalism aswell, though I'm a left-wing Liberal voter. There's ideas I don't like within the Liberal party, but to sway me over to the right side, it has to take lots of convincing. Though I dont agree with any of Stephen Harper on any of his policies, or any of the party policy.

 

Like I said, If I could I'd vote for the Quebecois.

[Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye 0]

I live surrounded by many different forms of Christian god who are slightly right in the left right spectrum of things. Nobody talks to me about politics and shit because if someone mentions supposedly important and life altering political dealings, I shrug it off and tell them about 1994 in black metal or something.

 

At this point, I guess I'm green by default.

[bob_barron 0]

Yea- I'm going to Ryerson.

[Red Baron 0]

Yea- I'm going to Ryerson.

How much is tuition there, eventually I'd like to go there.

 

After I graduate from Niagara College of course.

[bob_barron 0]

I pay the international fee so I can't really say.

 

I think it's between 3,000-5,000

[redbaron29 0]

I live in Youngstown Ohio a.k.a. Union Democratland. No matter people’s personal beliefs, around here they vote Democrat. When I went down to vote in the primary election this past year and asked for a republican ballot, the lovely polling lady quickly turned rabid on me. Apparently KKK isn’t too far from my neck of the woods, so we basically have the same set up. The more secluded areas you go, the more conservative the people become, but they still vote freaking democrat. Sometimes it boggles my mind. I do believe in my little suburbia town I am one of six people registered to the Republican Party. Everyone else is your typical high-class snobbish democrats who believe they are better then everyone else.

[Vern Gagne 0]

St.Paul-A liberal city, the east site where I live is really no different. The cities Mayor is more moderate and supported the President, but still solidly liberal. Not at the level of Mpls though.

[Guest netslob]

My county is full of jesusy conservatives and psychotic hillbillies that vote for whoever gets the "gun-friendly" nod.

you live in Mandarin too?

[NoCalMike 0]

Sacramento which is really a mix. In my area which is close to the downtown area, it is pretty liberal, complete with the liberal Sacramento News & Review publication in circulation, but as you travel eastward, it starts to get conservative. Within about 25 miles you are up in the hill valley where it is just outright right-wing, as guys like Doolittle are regularly elected. I'd say Sacramento itself leans a little more democratic, but the surrounding areas that border the city are conservative.

[Styles 0]

I'm a conservative living in Montgomery County, MD, the suburbs of Washington DC. That's pretty much all that needs to be said. Thanks to the more rural Eastearn Shore and Appalachian plains areas of the state we do have a Republican governor in Robert Ehrlich (god bless him) but everything he tries either gets blocked or overturned by the Democratic senate. As for my district I agreed with pretty much every policy point of the Republican candidate Chuck Floyd, who was of course clobbered like 80% to 20% by the freshman liberal trial lawyer Chris Van Hollen who "represents" us.

[Guest Wildbomb 4:20]

I'm a liberal living on Cape Cod, MA. Surprisingly, my town, Yarmouth, is the only place in the whole damn state where Kerry did not win during the election. It's a pretty big retirement community/tourist trap, so it's pretty much taxes=the devil around these parts.

 

Then I go to college in Boston, so you can imagine how that goes. Although at my school, I almost feel like a Republican in comparison to some of the people there. Talk about the liberal hippie commies? Yep, that's my school. Weird, I know.

 

--Ryan

...after a one-month layoff, the internet decides to return to my house...

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

I'm a conservative (social liberal, but I consider that less important than economic and foreign policy) living in Ottawa which is a left-wing city, but a lot more understanding than Toronto. I never had a problem with people giving me shit over my views. We'll have debates but we tend to respect the opinions of others. When I was living in the Toronto area, if you said 'Mike Harris' without following it up with 'sucks', expect to get beaten up.

 

My actual home riding of Clarington-Scugog-Uxbridge has a population pretty consistant with my views. They are a swing district, not latching on to a particular party, although right now both MP Bev Oda and MPP John O'Toole are conservatives.

[Guest sek69]

I'm a liberal and my part of town is pretty much straight Democrat on everything. I think I saw a couple of Bush yard signs this year, but we're pretty much 100% Dem.

 

Ironically, the guy who lived across the street from me was like the head Republican of my town. He was bringing the Republican candidate for mayor around the block and when he decided to have fun by letting the wacky liberal (me) get schooled by a real politician, he almost had to drag the guy away by the tie since I was on the verge of getting him to vote Dem.

[AndrewTS 0]

I'm a conservative and live in southwestern Pennsylvania, which as kkk mentioned already, is heavily Democrat. I'm registered as such for the primaries, though. Only the the so-called "T" in the middle of PA is largely conservative, and supposedly Kerry only took our state by a razor-thin margin.

 

I've been visited by Union-loving Dem sheep, wanting me to vote straight Democrat. I pointed out that unions around here have basically done jack but collect their dues, and several strikes around here either favored management, or in the case of County Market--drove away some business completely. Over the years, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, County Market, etc. have all simply left rather than cave into some admittedly insane demands from striking workers. The only supermarkets we have in my area are Shop n' Save, Giant Eagle, and Foodland, basically. Yet, we still have our share of Wal-Marts around.

 

I'm baffled at the election of a Republican commissioner (oddly, his only opponent was another Republican), Joe Hardy, who has habits of finding excuses to fire people at Laurel Highlands Foundation, and apparently other places he owns, once the state stops paying for half their wages. He wants to bring in plenty of casinos that, naturally, he would own. He has his own miniature Xanadu up in the mountains, to boot.

 

From what I've gathered, people voted for him because of "all the jobs he's brought" to the county. Shitty jobs that fill his own pocket of course, but hey...

[Guest Smues]

I'm a republican in Spokane,Washington which is more conservative then anything else, but not overwhelmingly. Only place in the state really that isn't conservative learning is king county, but they have the bulk of the population so they control the state. I actually kind of like it over on the east side because you can get both sides of the issues and usually have a cival debate. Living in Seattle for a year on a college campus though.....that was scary. I swear I couldn't walk from one building to another without having some extreme extreme extreme left-wing nut-job scream at me about something.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

New Hampshire has always been known as the Anti-Massachusetts. since there is no sales or income tax so many of the baby boomers have moved and turned it into a blue state. Thats ok, they get it in the ass on the property tax though. I don't fit with the politcal leanings here even with the change.

[Dr. Tom 0]

I live in MD, in the Baltimore suburbs, about 30 minutes from the PA line. In 2002, the state elected its first Republican governor in 40+ years. While MD is traditionally Democratic, that comes from the major population centers: Baltimore, Baltimore County, and Montgomery County. The rest of the state votes Republican, but since the three Democrat hotbeds have over half the state's population, that's usually enough. My county is fairly conservative, so I fit in reasonably well, though I avoid talking to random people whenever I can.

[Jingus 0]

I live in Nashville, TN, which as you'd imagine is pretty conservative. Let me put it this way: except for blindly optimistic hardcore Dems, nobody here really expected Al Gore to win his home state's electoral votes in 2000. The culture here is an odd one: although Tennessee does have its share of some of the most backward-ass hillbillies in the land, you'll also find a couple of gay bars in the downtown area that prosper surprisingly well. And although Protestant denominations sometimes seem to rule the state with an iron fist, you'll also find scattered temples and groups of people practicing every other faith on the globe, from Unitarians to wiccans to Bahai.

 

My personal political beliefs are so scattered and unrelated to the tenets of any one party that in my hometown, like pretty much everywhere I go, I never exactly fit in, but rarely piss people off to the point I get beat up either.

[MrRant 0]

Seattlish.

 

Extremely Liberal through the I-5 corridor but more conservative the farther south and east/west from the corridor you go.

 

Edit: I meant to type more conservative.

[Guest BDC]

Central KY.

 

The state is something of a conundrum. We elect mainly Dems for in-state offices and overwhelmingly Reps for national (Congressional, President) offices. We just elected our first Rep Governor in something like forty years, and unfortunately, the guy's shaping up to be a douche.

 

However, I'm in a college town, so as a conservative, I'm all the time just about ready to slay the idiot freshmen that wonder around screaming about how Bush is going to specifically nuke my dorm room or something.

 

This is, I swear, a conversation I had with a freshman on my campus. I really am just going to start killing them.

 

Sending the election to the House in a tie was unconstitutional? I snuck up on that one. With everyone else I'd just smile and shake my head. But THIS? I'm a martial artist, have been for a long time, but that turned me right into a damned constitutional NINJA.

 

"So," I said, sneaking up with my new-found ninja powers, "what's so unconstitutional about it?"

 

"It decides by states!" the detractor shouted. "No by representatives, but by states in the House of Representatives!"

 

At this point, I figured he'd been watching Commie News or something. But still, I wasn't done, so I pressed on:

 

"So, you're upset about this because of the fact that the President would have won very easily in the House."

 

"Yeah!"

 

Interesting so far, no? No, I didn't think so either. I drew my constitutional katana and went for the killing blow.

 

"And that's unconstitutional?"

 

"Yes! And do you know why?"

 

This was too good. "No, please tell me why."

 

"Because Bush made it up! He decided to do this just because he's the President!"

 

Okay, the stupidity was too much. I swung my blade to the throat.

 

"That's in the Constitution."

 

"No it's not."

 

"Yeah, it is. If there's a tie in the electoral college, it goes to the House. That's in the Constitution.  Listen, one of us knows what we're talking about here, who do YOU think it is?"

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

The only supermarkets we have in my area are Shop n' Save, Giant Eagle, and Foodland, basically. Yet, we still have our share of Wal-Marts around.

I go to Giant Eagle -- the other two stores are either overpriced or dirty.

 

And Wal-Mart is starting to build some of their SUPER-SIZED stores in my area, which will probably mean the end of one or two of those grocery stores you mentioned. I think/hope Giant Eagle will remain. I could live without the other two...

[Jobber of the Week 0]

County results:

Kerry: 148,261 67.2%

Bush: 68,204 31.0%

 

I lived in San Francisco for a while as well, and enough said about the politics there. I think my area on the cusp of the Bay Area, just inside the Shield Of Liberal Indignancy, is a little farther to the left than I am, but I could certainly live in a lot worse places. I know we vote left more than right still, but I think with more and more moderate Republicans that are like Schwarzenegger intead of Bush, the right could certainly break the lock and get competitive here.

 

I consider myself a moderate. My most liberal economic belief is that companies can't be trusted to regulate themselves, otherwise I have no problem with concepts like cutting taxes, as long as they're done appropriately so that the bills are paid when all is said and done. If you want to cut taxes, cut spending, too. On the other hand, if you cut spending, I don't want to see that my taxes are still going up.

 

My social beliefs are seemingly way out there but at the same time draw from both sides. I believe drug legalization will lead to an open, free market of safer drugs than what's currently available on the black market. I'm not a big fan of guns that are clearly designed to kill massive quantites of people, but I recognize that trying to take guns out of people's hands isn't going to work, so we're just going to have to live with it.

 

I basically don't believe in indecency as long as nobody is being physically hurt. I guess if I ran the country, you'd have guns, booze, and movies with nude-bodied sex scenes uncut on basic cable. If you didn't like it, don't own a gun, don't drink, and watch a channel without it.

 

Because of that last part and the meteoric rise of the "values voter" who thinks it's in the government's rights to legislate our morals and tell us right and wrong, I'm starting to feel more and more like I don't belong anywhere in this country anymore, but I don't have the time or money to live elsewhere at present. I'm going to give this place one last chance later this year as I'm 90% likely to move to Las Vegas, which is one piece of blue in a state that is otherwise red.

 

And besides, that's a town that understands moral debauchery.

[kkktookmybabyaway 0]

I think Idaho has one blue county in a sea of red, too, if I read that electoral map correctly. You can have all the guns, booze and anal sex you'd want if you moved up there...