Strategic Telemetry did an analysis of the voting patterns in Connecticut (.pdf). The results are fascinating. They actually track exactly with what I would expect, but I hate being right about these things.
Following are some of the characteristics that correlate with support for Lamont:
• Rural areas
• Areas with a high median household income
• Areas with a high housing value
• Areas with a higher percentage of voters with college degrees or graduate degrees
• Areas with a high percentage of owner-occupied housing
• Areas with a high percentage of married couples
• Areas with a high percentage of children in private schools
• Areas with low turnover in housing
• Areas with high percentage in white-collar occupations
• Areas where many voters have long commute times
• Areas with high concentrations of veteransCharacteristics that correlated with support for Lieberman were:
• Urban areas
• Areas with high numbers of single women
• Areas with high numbers of unmarried partners, including same-sex partners
• Areas with a high percentage of renter-occupied housing
• Areas with a high property tax burden
• Areas with a high percentage of voters working in blue-collar occupations
• Areas with a high percentage of voters working in service sector occupations
• Areas with a high concentration of people receiving social security
• Areas with high concentrations of individuals currently serving in the armed
forces
A while back I was chastised for suggesting that Hillary’s strongest support would be from the black community. But I said it for the same reasons that I would have predicted that Joe Lieberman’s strongest support would come from urban areas and blue collar workers.
Connecticut is the richest state in the country and you might expect all those rich people to be Republicans or centrist Lieberman-style Democrats.
On the other hand, you would not expect low income workers, minorities, and urbanites to support someone that favors privatizing Social Security and gutting affirmative action.
The rich vote for the liberal, the poor vote for the centrist. What’s it all about?
It’s about name recognition and low versus high information voters. It’s also about how voters get their news. In areas of low internet usage, Lamont faired poorly. He had a harder time getting his message out. This is all part of the digital divide. People with low access to alternate media outlets are more prone to swallow the corporate version of reality. They may have simply missed the roiling debate about Joe Lieberman that has been taking place on blogs and within elite and niche outlets like The Nation, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. Many went to the polls without any exposure to the Netroots message. For them, Joe Lieberman was still Al Gore’s good soldier…a friendly and familiar face, and a good progressive.
The shame of it is that the very people that should have been least inclined to vote for Lieberman were the one’s that turned out for him. They will turn out for Hillary, too, and for the same reasons, if we do not figure out how to build a bridge that crosses the digital divide. We simply have to bring our progressive message into the inner city and find a way to increase the amount of information that is reaching there.
As for Lamont’s voters, they were, roughly speaking, the very “Tax-Raising, Latte-drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, Body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, Left-wing Freak Shows’ that turned out for Howard Dean. White, highly educated, extremely affluent, and liberal. These voters were highly informed about the news and not nearly as susceptible to simplistic messaging and poll-driven spin. This base of voters has never been successful in Presidential primaries. It is simply too small of a base. They have backed Teddy Kennedy (1980), Gary Hart (1984 & 1988), Paul Tsongas (1992), Bill Bradley (2000), and Howard Dean (2004).
The latte-drinking crowd is eyeing Russ Feingold and John Edwards in 2008. But Feingold and Edwards will meet the same fate as their predecessors if they cannot reach into their natural base of voters. The voters that have the most to gain from progressive politics are the one’s least inclined to vote for progressive politicians in Presidential primaries. (Obviously, Jesse Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988 throws a cog into this analysis).
Hillary Clinton will be our next nominee unless we can convince minorities, urbanites, and blue collar workers that their best interests lie elsewhere. The Lamont-Lieberman voting patterns should be an alarm bell.