Cross-tabbing Religion and Obama

The Main Sequence: Cross-tabbing Religion and Obama

A Gallup poll which ran over the weekend notes that Vermont identifies itself as the least religious state. As usual with such things I cross-tabbed it against Obama's share of the vote.



I found some of what I expected: the more self-identified "religious" states leaned redder and vice versa. But there were a couple of interesting clusters and as I mulled it over I was reminded of nothing so much as... astronomy?



Astronomers describe stars with what they call the Main Sequence. This chard is what's called a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (universally abbreviated to "H-R") which plots luminosity against mass. In general, the more massive the star, the hotter it burns. Most stars fall somewhere on the Main Sequence, which runs from blue giants through ordinary Sun-like stars to red dwarves.

And much like the stars, the states graph out diagonally. Even the colors match: bluer on the upper, less religious left, and the heavily Republican red religious states on the lower right.

But the H-R Diagram has a couple of odd clusters, in the corners opposite the ends of the Main Sequence: white dwarves and red giants.

There are no red giants, massive yet cool, on the upper right of the political chart. Though Texas would qualify as a huge red political Antares or Betelgeuse, no states are at once highly religious and strongly Democratic. (If North Carolina gets a little more Democratic, it might edge up that way.)

But there is a cluster in the lower left where the white dwarves hang out, less religious yet more Republican. They are Ronald Reagan's Sagebrush Rebellion states: Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Arizona, and Alaska. The last two may have been more GOP than average in 2008 because they were represented on the ticket. Remember for a couple weeks, just before the Palin pick, when Alaska was at the fringes of in-play? Montana was a possibility till the end, and Arizona went for Bill Clinton in `96 and would likely have been in play if not for McCain being the nominee.

These white-dwarf, libertarian states had smiliar voting performance to the "red dwarf" states at the lover right, highly religious and weak for Obama. It's a predictable cluster: South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi.

There's an odd, two-state bridge of sorts between the Sagebrush west and the fundamentalist South: Utah and Oklahoma. They're moving in opposite directions. Utah trended a little Democratic this time; still very Republican but Obama actually carried Salt Lake County. Oklahoma, more Southern than Western, trended Republican and McCain won every county (the only state where he can make that claim).

Republicans have a choice here, and Democrats have an opportunity with the white dwarves. If the GOP retreats to the religious base, they risk alienating places like Arizona, and similar spots like Colorado and Nevada that they held until this year. For the Democrats, moving down the main sequence, the Dakotas and Nebraska are a better bet for the future, at least for the Obama era, than the Appalachia belt of West Virginia and Kentucky.

Other than that, some of the neighboring pairs are interesting. Some are obvious: the Dakotas, Washington-Oregon. I can see where Iowa and Minnesota are similar, right in the middle like the Sun, but matched with Pennsylvania? Wisconsin-New Jersey? The two closest pairs that voted differently were Indiana-Missouri and North Carolina-Georgia. Good signs for 2012.

Iowa Democratic Chair Race

What About The OTHER State Party Chair Race?

For all the public buzz over the race for Iowa Republican Party chair, the corresponding contest has been extremely quiet. Iowa Democratic Party chair Scott Brennan has announced he's stepping down, with his replacement to be elected Jan. 31. But Iowa's lefty blogs aren't buzzing the way the rightosphere is over next weekend's hotly contested GOP chair race.

The same dynamic has happened in the national party chair races. Republicans, suffering from the navel-gazing divisions of defeat, are in a heated six-way race for national chair. Meanwhile, over the weekend, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was smoothly eased in at the DNC to replace Howard Dean, with but a nod from the president-elect.

Maybe it's because the party chair seems to matter less when you control the White House, Congress, and the state government trifecta. And maybe it's because when you're in power, the opinions of those in power matter.

In Iowa, that means Governor Culver and Senator Harkin. They'll have strong opinions, and for most of the election cycle they'll be otherwise busy. Culver will be focused on the re-election and Harkin, fresh off re-elect, will be busier in Washington with a friendly Administration.

One of the names in the mix is Patty Judge, which would take the IDP the route it went in the Vilsack era, with the lieutenant governor serving as party chair. But Sally Pederson didn't move in as party chair until after the re-election, and there's an inherent conflict as IDP interests and Culver-Judge interests may not always be identical.

Other names in the mix have included Becky Greenwald and former Mike Blouin running mate and leading Hillary backer Andrea McGuire. Either would be a solid fundraiser and spokesperson.. But if Greenwald wants to take another shot at Latham, she's out, and McGuire's unlikely to get support from the governor.

One thing that seems likely: this will be figured out ahead of time and presented as a fait accompli, without the campaign web sites and public debates that we've seen in the Republican race. The grassroots influence, if any, will be less on the name and more on the direction.

Since nothing's more grassroots than the blogs, and it's my job to say crazy things, here's my thoughts on the goals of the next IDP chair:

Stay First. That needs to be the first and foremost goal for any Iowa party chair of any party, and will requires bipartisan cooperation with the Republican counterpart. The caucuses gained a powerful ally with Obama's victory, but most of the action here will be on the GOP side. The chair race ripples into the vice-chair race, as the vice chair gets a spot on the DNC Rules committee which decides these things. (It also helps that Michigan's clout has declined with the Dingell dethroning.)

Hold What We Have. A third consecutive big Democratic cycle is hard to expect, and there's a lot on the line. Not so much Culver; it looks like he'll mend his fences with labor this session and get folks reunited behind him. I'm thinking more of the legislative seats.

Keep the band together. Because of Obama's pledges on lobbyist and PAC money, most of the 2008 Iowa ground campaign was run under the Obama banner rather than the IDP banner. It's not clear yet whether Obama support translates into Democratic support when he's not on the ballot (the post-November runoffs are poor test cases, all on red turf except the unique William Jefferson situation), but the party needs to find a way to make that happen.

Position ourselves for 2012. We're losing a seat in Congress in 2012 and we need to come out of that with a 3-1 Democratic split. My thoughts on this are on the record and probably winning me no friends at IDP HQ.

A strong challenge to Chuck Grassley. We can't have another let sleeping dogs lie race here. A weak candidate here breaks the straight ticket at the very top, and hurts everyone below. Every election cycle there's one contest that comes out of nowhere, and we need to be in position for it. Sometimes that out of nowhere candidate doesn't fit the conventional mold (like Dave Loebsack); the key is being able to make a strong, credible, well-funded case. Sure, it could fizzle, like, say, Jim Slattery did in Kansas this cycle. But it could sizzle, like Tom Carper knocking off Bill Roth in Delaware in `96. The thing is, we don't know—Grassley hasn't has a serious challenge since he was the challenger.