[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

That's why I qualified by saying cities of a quarter million or more. I grew up in a small town in the middle of Iowa where the politics and social mores were very conservative. I went to college in Northwest Iowa, where the politics made my small home town look like San Francisco in comparison.

I wouldn't claim to say it's "the" factor in most cases. There are a lot of things that come into play, such as religious background, the politics of your parents, union membership, income and education level, etc.

Completely agreed.

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

I'm not saying there's a causal relationship between military service and conservative politics; but I am saying there's a definite correlation. I would guess there is some causal relation as well, but that's based purely on anecdotal evidence rather than statistical analysis so I won't go beyond speculation on that.

Agree again. And I completely agree or have similar information based on anecdotal information.

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

And with Obama, he benefited a great deal from some Republican scandals (at various levels of Illinois politics) shortly before and during his campaign that left him with a very politically weak opponent and a general Illini distaste for the GOP. This is not to say he wouldn't have won otherwise, I think he would have, but it woudn't have been the landslide it turned out to be.

He did and he didn't benefit. Obviously the scandal helped, but when Carol Moseley Braun was elected Senator, she did not care many if any southern districts in Illinois and she did not need to. There are almost as many people in urban Chicago area and surrounding counties as there are in all of that outside of that region. So yes he got more votes than Moseley Braun did, but he might have won anyway if he had northern Illinois and Cook County support.

Originally Posted by Snaqwells

And Steve's initial point was (unspoken as it may have been) regarding metropolitan areas. I highly doubt he was comparing the politics of San Diego to the politics of Orange City, Iowa. That would be like comparing apples to baseballs.

If he wasn't, then he needed to make that much clearer. And the reason I say this, is because as an African-American that works baseball in the past in very rural and all-white communities, it is kind of a shock in some cases when I show up to work a game by the reaction. And this past year I worked the State Finals in the two smallest classes of schools and I probably could hold on one hand the number of non-white players I had through all the playoff games, including the State Finals themselves. And these were involving schools that were far from metropolitan areas or even the larger areas in the state (not in every case but by far more were in very rural areas). And I know if the reaction to me which was mostly positive was seen by those that are not used to seeing a person of my color working games very often, I can only imagine the things that might be assumed by someone that is wearing a ponytail or has certain tattoos on their arm. It is just one of those things that might not be widely accepted. Now our society is changing and many of the people are exposed to more different types of people than they ever were though media sources and especially TV. So it might not be seen the same visceral reaction, but there are still standards that exist.

Peace