The Struggle to Turn North Carolina Blue

Living in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, one cannot escape North Carolina news because (i) some of the newer "bedroom communities" for the area are located just across the Virginia/North Carolina border and (ii) local news coverage includes northeast North Carolina.  As a result, it is easy to watch a struggle going on in North Carolina that mirrors Virginia: modern, progressive, urban parts of the state are trying to out vote the rural areas that embrace religious extremism, the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda and which view outsiders and modernity with a mindset not so far removed from that on display in the old movie "Deliverance."  For progressives, it's hard dealing with the batshitery that such backward areas support.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the ongoing struggle.  Here are excerpts (note the elderly voter who bemoans what has become of the GOP):

Charlotte, the largest city, the “research triangle” cities (and college towns) of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, and cities like Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Asheville are turning more blue than red, partly from an infusion of new workers in finance, health care, technology and education. But the state as a whole is more of a tossup.

Last year, Republicans took control of the governor’s mansion and increased their majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, giving them total control of state government in Raleigh for the first time in over a century. The new governor, Pat McCrory, thought to be a moderate when he was Charlotte’s mayor, helped lead a sharp turn to the right. He signed laws that slashed unemployment benefits; opted out of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion; toughened voting requirements; made it harder for abortion clinics to operate; and repealed a law that allowed death row inmates to have their sentences converted to life in prison without parole if they could prove racial bias in their cases.

The resulting backlash — a series of weekly sit-in protests known as “Moral Mondays” — has given pause even to Republicans such as Sally Dalton Robinson, whose family has been central to the life of Charlotte and the state. Her husband, Russell, was a founder of one of the state’s largest law firms; his grandfather was the principal author of the state’s 1868 Constitution.

“Russ and I see so much the same way,” said Mrs. Robinson, who is 80. “Our whole voting lives, we’ve been registered Republicans, and we don’t intend to change.” Her husband’s great-grandfather came over to Goldsboro, N.C., from Ireland before the Civil War and was a Republican when that meant opposing secession and slavery, supporting President Abraham Lincoln, and being at dangerous odds with their neighbors, who were overwhelmingly white Democrats.

“What we feel is that the Republican Party we have voted for and supported most of our married life has really gone off and left us — that’s sad to us,” Mrs. Robinson said. “A lot of that — not all — is social issues. I’m very opposed to what Republicans in this state have done in terms of abortion, making it harder. I’m opposed to putting into the Constitution that marriage is between a man and a woman. I think it’s very detrimental that we’ve cut back on the days that we have for early voting.

She added: “I grew up in a city that was very segregated, and I did not question that as a child. When I would get on the bus as an 8-year-old to go to town, the African-Americans were seated at the back and I was seated at the front. I didn’t question it. It’s hard for me to take that in about myself, but it’s true.”

North Carolina, like Sally Dalton Robinson, has changed. Still, in 2014, it’s a state that is still weighing what it wants to be now and will be in the future. This midterm election could give us, and the rest of the nation, a clue.

Growing Democratic Trending in Virginia

One thing that the 2013 Virginia elections highlighted was the growing ability of Virginia's urban areas to out vote the reactionary, bigoted parts of the state.  As the map above indicates, all of the larger cities in Virginia are now trending strongly for Democrats - Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County are likewise trending Democrat.  And with most population growth being confined to the urban areas, the long term prospects for the Virginia GOP in statewide races is not promising.  The Virginia GOP's continued prostitution of itself to white supremacists and religious extremists will likely accelerate the trend.  Blue Virginia notes as follows:

Take a look at the vote trend between 2001 and 2013 from Daily Kos. There's a lot of red there, but it's in the most rural, slow-growth parts of the state. All of the major population areas, from Northern Virginia to Richmond to Tidewater, are trending blue. The population growth in the state is heavily concentrated in this urban crescent. Favorable demographic trends and the alienation of moderate suburban voters by the hard-right have combined to turn Virginia into a blue state ... at least statewide in higher turnout elections. 

Will the Virginia GOP get the message?  Probably not since it is increasingly controlled by The Family Foundation and Tea Party lunatics, groups that do not like to accept objective reality.

Virginia's Metro Areas Sealed McAuliffe's Win

Virginia is becoming two different states.  One consists of the urban areas in crescent running from the Northern Virginia centers of Alexandria, Fairfax County and Arlington and extending southward through Richmond before arching southeast to Hampton Roads (Charlottesville and Roanoke are islands off to the west).  The other Virginia is comprised of everywhere else. The new Virginia, if you will, in the large metropolitan centers is progressive in relative terms and the GOP standard mantra of God, guns and gays simply no longer resonates.  In the old Virginia, racism, religious extremism, and the embrace of backwardness still holds sway.  Ironically areas like southwest Virginia bemoan their economic decline in a modern world yet are unwilling to leave the 1950's thus compounding the exodus of those who are educated and yearning for a better life.  The Virginian Pilot looks at this divide that is only going to intensify.  Here are highlights:

The seeds of Terry McAuliffe's gubernatorial victory blossomed in Virginia's population centers, where changing demographics are remaking the state's once-crimson political DNA.

Voters from Hampton Roads, Northern Virginia and the Richmond area formed an electoral backbone that made the Democrat the first governor elected from the party of the sitting president in 36 years. Election deficits in those regions spelled doom for Ken Cuccinelli, and they suggest cause for concern by his party as the political muscle of those communities swells.

While Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling concedes external factors may have played a role, he worries Republicans are flirting with disaster if they make excuses instead of adjusting to a state becoming more Democratic. "Were not going to get this party headed in the right direction until we understand we have a problem," said Bolling, who split with fellow Republican Cuccinelli after the latter's supporters orchestrated a takeover of the party nomination process last year.

Bolling maintains that Republicans' problems go deeper than this election. He points out that since 2005 the party has won just one statewide contest for president, U.S. Senate or governor: Bob McDonnell's 2009 gubernatorial victory.  That was a red dot in a sea of blue outcomes over a span that saw Democrats claim the governor's mansion twice, Barack Obama carry Virginia twice, and the U.S. Senate elections of Jim Webb, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine.

A look at the electoral map helps explain how McAuliffe turned the state Democratic only four years after McDonnell won in a landslide.

In South Hampton Roads, Chesapeake and Suffolk flipped from Republican to Democratic. Virginia Beach, the state's most populous city, stayed in the Republican column by a slim margin - 47.6 percent to 45.9 percent. In 2009, McDonnell carried the city with 64 percent.

In Northern Virginia, the state's most populous region, three counties - Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William - switched from red to blue. So did Henrico County in the Richmond area.

Together, the 5.6 million residents of those three regions account for more than two-thirds of the state's estimated 8.1 million residents. Not all are registered voters.  Two university communities also flipped: Albemarle County near the University of Virginia and Montgomery County, home of Virginia Tech.

An election-eve poll of Hispanic and Asian- American voters yielded some clues to how Virginia's increasing diversity helped the Democratic ticket. Done by two groups that support liberalizing U.S. immigration laws, it showed overwhelming majorities of those voters - 66 percent of Hispanics and 63 percent of Asian- Americans - breaking for McAuliffe, who endorsed a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the country illegally.

Harry Wilson, a professor of public affairs at Roanoke College, said the demographic profile of this year's voters resembled that of the 2012 presidential election more than 2009: a declining percentage of whites, more minorities and a respectable turnout of young voters. "As the electorate becomes more diverse and younger, that clearly favors Democrats," he said.

Will the Republican Party of Virginia get the message and stop catering almost exclusively to religious zealots, white supremacists and those driven by greed?  I doubt it.  It will take more defeats to reinforce the message delivered in this year's elections.  It ultimately comes down to a choice between the past and the future.  The Virginia GOP clearly wants to return to the 1950's.

Why Gay Marriage is Inevitable in Virginia

Young friends at their wedding

Over the last decade, the demographics of the population of Virginia have changed in many ways: urban growth, increases in Hispanic and minority voters, and an influx of college educated individuals.  None of these trends have been positive for the Republican Party of Virginia which has continued to prostitute itself to the most extreme and hate filled elements of the Virginia populace. Although a few remain who seek to change the Virginia GOP from within, for the most part, the party base is increasingly confined to those motivated by greed, racism and religious extremism (the 2009 GOP victory was not representative of this new Virginia and was largely the result, in my view, of a truly terrible Democrat ticket). Meanwhile, most of Virginia is moving forward.  A piece in PolicyMic argues that these sweeping demographic changes make gay marriage inevitable in Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

The same Virginians who voted 57% in favor of ratifying a constitutional amendment defining marriage as “between one man and one woman” in 2006 now believe it should be legal for gay couples to get married. According to Virginia’s statewide election survey results released earlier this month, 56% of likely voters oppose the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. 

With Proposition 8 lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies on the case to challenge Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage, the legal battle is sure to be an interesting one. But what has changed in the last seven years to cause majority opinion to switch sides so dramatically?

Perhaps it has something to do with public opinion about those who want to keep the law as is. Republican Ken Cuccinelli, sitting attorney general and Virginia governor hopeful not only opposes marriage equality, but he has been fighting a losing battle to reinstate Virginia’s anti-sodomy or, “Crimes Against Nature” law. Robin Marty at Rolling Stone claims, “Cucinelli's extreme stance on social issues makes him unelectable.” 

Social issues are becoming a deep concern for the changing demographics of Virginia voters. The Center for American Progress Action Fund saw a shift in Virginia, specifically Northern Virginia, shortly after the 2008 presidential election. These suburbs of the Washington, D.C. metro area have grown by 16% since 2000, thanks to an influx of minorities and white college graduates. The report by Ruy Teixeira found that the area “casts a third of Virginia’s ballots, and it is also the area where Democrats have made their greatest gains.” The New York Times saw the same trend in August of this year when they reported a “rapid growth among college-educated suburban moderates [in Virginia] who have proven receptive to Democratic stances on social issues.” As younger voters move into the state, they bring with them their more socially liberal mindsets. 

For those fighting to lift the ban in Virginia, no narrative speaks to the issue of marriage equality more than the one Boies drew between the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 (which declared that “laws restricting interracial marriage violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and reversed previous court rulings”) and Virginia’s present struggle for another kind of equality. "Virginia gave us the first marriage equality case – and the one that most clearly established that the right to marry the person you love is a fundamental right of all Americans. It's fitting, then, that Virginia be the battleground for another great test of that principle," said Boies.

If the majority of Virginians get their way, we will see not only an end to the states ban on same-sex marriage, but also a greater step toward national marriage equality. 

 Hopefully, these changed demographics will doom the Virginia GOP's 2013 statewide slate to defeat as well.

Census: Over 1 in 3 USA Counties Dying Off

By Hope Yen of Associated Press

The trend toward a more urban population in America is accelerating and rural counties - the bastions of the Republican Party - are dying off and seeing drops in population.  The irony is that as the populations in many of these counties double down on their conservatism, the population losses only increase as younger residents leave for more liberal and progressive areas that offer more job opportunities and social amenities.  It's a trend that is clearly visible in Southwest Virginia where the political/religious establishment tries to hang onto the 1950's while unemployment remains inordinately high.  Here are excerpts from a piece at MSN News that looks at the Census findings:

New 2012 census estimates released Thursday highlight the population shifts as the U.S. encounters its most sluggish growth levels since the Great Depression.

The findings also reflect the increasing economic importance of foreign-born residents as the U.S. ponders an overhaul of a major 1965 federal immigration law. Without new immigrants, many metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and St. Louis would have posted flat or negative population growth in the last year.

"Immigrants are innovators, entrepreneurs. They're making things happen. They create jobs," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, at an immigration conference in his state last week. Saying Michigan should be a top destination for legal immigrants to come and boost Detroit and other struggling areas, Snyder made a special appeal: "Please come here."

Census data show that 1,135 of the nation's 3,143 counties are now experiencing "natural decrease," where deaths exceed births. That's up from roughly 880 U.S. counties, or 1 in 4, in 2009. Already apparent in Japan and many European nations, natural decrease is now increasingly evident in large swaths of the U.S., much of it rural.

Despite increasing deaths, the U.S. population as a whole continues to grow, boosted by immigration from abroad and relatively higher births among the mostly younger migrants from Mexico, Latin America and Asia.

"These counties are in a pretty steep downward spiral," said Kenneth Johnson, a senior demographer and sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire, who researched the findings. "The young people leave and the older adults stay in place and age. Unless something dramatic changes — for instance, new development such as a meatpacking plant to attract young Hispanics — these areas are likely to have more and more natural decrease."

Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Reference Bureau, noted that political efforts to downsize government and reduce federal spending could also have a significant impact on future population winners and losers.

Since 2010, many of the fastest-growing U.S. metro areas have also been those that historically received a lot of federal dollars, including Fort Stewart, Ga.; Jacksonville, N.C.; Crestview, Fla.; and Charleston-North Charleston, S.C., all home to military bases. Per-capita federal spending rose from about $5,300 among the fastest-growing metros from 2000 to 2010, to about $8,200 among the fastest-growing metros from 2011 to 2012.

"Federal funding has helped many cities weather the decline in private sector jobs," Mather said.
Other findings:

— Roughly 46 percent of rural counties just beyond the edge of metropolitan areas experienced natural decrease, compared with 17 percent of urban counties.
— As a whole, the population of non-metropolitan areas last year declined by 0.1 percent, compared with growth of 1 percent for large metro areas and 0.7 percent for small metropolitan areas.
— In the last year, four metro areas reached population milestones: Los Angeles hit 13 million, Philadelphia reached 6 million, Las Vegas crossed 2 million and Grand Rapids, Mich., passed 1 million.
— Chattahoochee County, Ga., home to Fort Benning, was the nation's fastest-growing county, increasing 10.1 percent in the last year.

Although the study doesn't cite conservatism per se as a problem, here in Virginia many rural areas find it difficult to attract new business and industry because they are so culturally backward  and  unwelcoming to those who aren't white conservatives.  Martinsville, Virginia, is a case in point.  The area is scenically beautiful, but if you are gay, black, Hispanic and non-Christian, you will likely not be welcomed.