Idaho's conservative conservatives

Following up with thoughts from the previous post, that the electoral tendencies of moderates are defined in large part by the political atmospheres of the states they live in doesn't necessarily mean the same holds true for their more ideologically committed cohorts. Conservatives are sparse in California, but the state still produces hard-liners like Tom McClintock and Brian Bilbray.

The following table ranks states by the percentages of their liberals who voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The states are colored according to their contemporary political profiles, with purple states representing those in which Obama's total vote share ranged between 46%-54%. Due to insufficient sample size, Utah is excluded:

State	Obama %
1. District of Columbia	98
2. Delaware	95
3. Vermont	94
3. Oregon	94
5. Colorado	93
5. Washington	93
7. Illinois	92
7. New Mexico	92
7. New York	92
7. Minnesota	92
11. Hawaii	91
11. Maryland	91
11. California	91
11. Florida	91
11. Wisconsin	91
11. Pennsylvania	91
11. New Hampshire	91
18. Massachusetts	90
18. Connecticut	90
18 Virginia	90
18. Montana	90
22. Rhode Island	89
22. Iowa	89
24. Michigan	88
25. Nevada	87
25. New Jersey	87
25. Indiana	87
25. North Carolina	87
29. Maine	86
29. Texas	86
29. Missouri	86
32. Georgia	85
33. Tennessee	84
33. South Carolina	84
35. Ohio	83
35. Kansas	83
37. Idaho	82
38. North Dakota	81
38. Alaska	81
38. Oklahoma	81
41. South Dakota	80
42. Nebraska	78
43. Mississippi	77
43. Louisiana	77
43. Alabama	77
43. Wyoming	77
47. Arkansas	76
48. Arizona	75
49. Kentucky	74
50. West Virginia	71

The correlation between how a state voted and how its liberals voted is .79 (p = 0)--not quite as robust as for moderates, but still very strong for a measure like this. It's not just that blue states have relatively more liberals and fewer conservatives than red states do--blue state liberals also tend to be more liberal than red state liberals tend to be. Conversely, as the next table shows, red state conservatives are both more conservative and relatively more numerous than blue state conservatives are. Due to insufficient sample size, DC is excluded:

State	Obama %
1. Hawaii	41
2. Vermont	33
3. Illinois	29
3. New Mexico	29
5. Massachusetts	28
6. Connecticut	27
7. Delaware	25
8. Maryland	24
9. California	23
9. Rhode Island	23
9. Maine	23
12. Michigan	22
12. Ohio	22
12. Mississippi	22
15. Florida	21
15. Iowa	21
15. Nevada	21
15. New Jersey	21
15. Texas	21
15. Georgia	21
21. Wisconsin	20
22. Pennsylvania	19
23. Colorado	18
23. New York	18
23. Virginia	18
23. Louisiana	18
27. New Hampshire	17
27. Tennessee	17
27. South Dakota	17
27. Arizona	17
31. Washington	16
31. Indiana	16
31. Missouri	16
31. Alabama	16
31. Arkansas	16
36. Oregon	15
36. Minnesota	15
36. North Carolina	15
36. North Dakota	15
36. Kentucky	15
36. West Virginia	15
42. South Carolina	14
43. Nebraska	13
44. Alaska	12
45. Kansas	11
46. Montana	10
47. Oklahoma	9
48. Utah	9
49. Wyoming	8
50. Idaho	6

The correlation between how a state voted and how its conservatives voted is .81 (p = 0), almost identical to the liberal correlation and modestly weaker than the moderate one.

Parenthetically, the contemporary liberal/moderate/conservative trichotomy lacks nuance and is necessarily both historically and geographically disconnected. I get that. However, it has become part of the both the vernacular and the media lexicon in the US, and it works pretty well as a general framework for understanding and describing the political landscape of the country in a uncomplicated way. It satisfices.

Moderate is a moderate is a moderate?

Do liberals, moderates, and conservatives respectively vote Democratic, split, and Republican in roughly equal proportions across states, the difference being that the Wyoming breakdown is 14%/47%/39% while Vermont's is 32%/44%/24%? Or do Vermont's liberals, moderates, and conservatives all tend to be more liberal than Wyoming's liberals, moderates, and conservatives tend to be? To formulate an answer, let's ask the question "Is a moderate a moderate is a moderate in the US, or is the definition of 'moderate' contingent upon the political atmosphere said moderate exists in?"

The proceeding table ranks states by what percentages of their self-described moderates voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential election. The states are colored according to their contemporary political profiles, with purple states representing those in which Obama's total vote share ranged between 46%-54%.

State	Obama %
1. District of Columbia	92
2. Hawaii	75
3. Vermont	69
4. New York	68
5. Oregon	67
5. California	67
5. Delaware	67
5. Illinois	67
9. Rhode Island	66
10. Washington	65
11. Nevada	64
11. Maryland	64
13. North Carolina	63
13. Colorado	63
13. Iowa	63
13. Wisconsin	63
13. Michigan	63
13. Maine	63
13. Connecticut	63
20. New Mexico	62
21. Missouri	61
21. Ohio	61
23. Indiana	60
23. New Hampshire	60
25. Massachusetts	59
26. South Carolina	58
26. Georgia	58
26. Virginia	58
26. Minnesota	58
26. Pennsylvania	58
26. New Jersey	58
32. Florida	57
33. Montana	56
34. Mississippi	55
35. Kentucky	53
35. Texas	53
35. South Dakota	53
38. Utah	52
38. Arkansas	52
38. Kansas	52
38. Arizona	52
38. North Dakota	52
43. West Virginia	51
44. Nebraska	50
45. Alabama	49
46. Idaho	48
46. Tennessee	48
48. Louisiana	45
49. Alaska	44
50. Oklahoma	43
51. Wyoming	40

The correlation between how a state voted and how its moderates voted is .93 (p = 0). That is, the relationship is nearly perfect, as a cursory glance at the table pretty clearly illustrates. As 2008 was a good year for Democrats, it's not surprising that a moderate majorities across most of the country went for him.

But the state-level differences are pronounced and predicted by the general political climate of those states to a significant degree. To some extent, moderates probably go with the flow. Put in another way, conditions 'on the ground' are more determinative of what a moderate is than Fox News and CNN definitions of "moderate" are. For an extreme example of this, consider that Wyoming's liberals were nearly three times as supportive of McCain as DC's moderates were.

Gay bashing by race

We know from exit polling on California's Proposition 8 that blacks see gays as second-class citizens, but does this civic form of disenfranchisement also manifest itself in less genteel ways?!

FBI statistics offer an answer. The following table shows offender rates by race for designated hate crimes committed against homosexuals as a percentage of the white (including Hispanic) offender rate, so anything over 100% indicates a higher propensity for gay bashing than whites display and anything under 100% shows less of one:

Race	Rate
Black	288%
White	100%
American Indian	66%
Asian/P.I.	30%

In the conception of many, the diversity tower starts with white women on the bottom floor and works its way to the top story where blacks reside. When it comes to special benefits conferred, this conception is pretty accurate. Yet when blacks and gays tussle, gays often win (figuratively speaking, of course--as these crime stats show, they don't actually get the better of a physical confrontation).

Cop killing by race, gender

There are commonly held feelings ranging from mistrust to downright hatred of the police shared by many in the black community. The police, for their part, tend to spend a disproportionate (inordinate?) amount of time dealing with blacks because they're the ones who engage in a disproportionate amount of criminal activity. Cats go where the mice play.

Criminals are a formidable breed of mouse, though, and sometimes they kill the cats who are after them. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) tracks the racial and sexual characteristics of perpetrators who feloniously killed law enforcement officers from 2001 through the end of 2010.

I wondered how much more (or less--I always keep an open mind!) likely blacks are to murder cops and other agents than whites are. Unfortunately, for reasons probably attributable to intentional obfuscation for anti-racist purposes, Hispanics are not broken out separately and consequently the vast majority of them are grouped in with whites, causing the white baseline to be more murderous than the non-Hispanic white baseline would be if it was identifiable. Curiously, when it comes to hate crime victimization (but not perpetration), data on Hispanics are tracked, however. But I digress.

Anyway, the proceeding table shows the rates of cop killing for non-whites relative to the white rate. In other words, a rate of 100% indicates cop killing that is exactly equal to the white rate; anything less than 100% indicates a lower rate of cop killing relative to whites and anything above it indicates a higher rate:

Race	Rate
Black	528%
American Indian	173%
Asian/P.I.	51%

The cop killing gender gap dwarfs the cop killing racial gap, though. Men are 4,957% more likely than women are to murder law enforcement agents.

Oh, she sees just fine

What to make of this:

Blacks are more than twice as likely as nonblacks (72 to 32 percent) to believe that Mr. Zimmerman (who is white and Hispanic) is guilty of a crime in shooting Trayvon, according to an April 2-4 Gallup survey of 3,006 Americans.

... and this?:

In a landmark ruling, a North Carolina judge on Friday vacated the death penalty of a black man convicted of murder, saying prosecutors across the state had engaged in deliberate and systematic racial discrimination when striking black potential jurors in death penalty cases.

First and foremost, that justice is most certainly not colorblind.

Political news IQ

++Addition++See Steve's insights on the Pew results.

---

Expanding beyond the News IQ quizzes it periodically conducts, Pew Research recently released the results of what the organization calls the Political News IQ Quiz, which you can take here. I answered them all correctly, as I suspect the majority of readers of this blog and others like it will also do. Yet only 8% of the population fared as well, a reminder that the overwhelming majority of the American public is unaware of the basic layout of the political landscape, let alone plugged into the minutiae of committee memberships, legislative action, or how relevant Lochner v. New York is in the Supreme Court's consideration of the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Some points of interest from the results:

- Men fared better than women on every single question asked. Ho-hum, that's always the case when it comes to current events more distant than the dinner table or, at most, the local city council meeting. As has become its custom, Pew did not publish these results in the body of the actual report, but they can be accessed by users who finish the abbreviated online version of the quiz. Pew's acts of commission are honest and laudable. Acts of omission, on the other hand--well, Pew's still better than most, so I guess we have to take what we can get.

- On most items, age and political knowledge increase together. There are a few exceptions, though. Those aged 18-29 were more aware than older cohorts that the Democratic party is more favorably inclined towards spending cuts on defense, allowing illegal immigrants to become citizens, and expanding the privileges of homosexuals. These (especially the latter two--the first is more of a reflexive and rhetorically effective reaction to conservative calls for spending cuts) presage the direction the Democratic party will take in the future, away from concerns like punitive taxation of high income earners and creating laws favorable to labor organizations that the contemporary left doesn't care that much about, and will care even less about going forward.

- As Republicans have higher average IQs than Democrats do, and Democrats have higher average IQs than independents do, it isn't surprising that Republicans fared best, answering an average of 12.6 of the 17 full length quiz questions correctly. Democrats followed, with 11.4 correct. Independents took up the rear at 10.7 correctly answered questions. To SWPLs' eternal frustration, failing to break out results by race means that assessments by party affiliation are always going to make Republicans, members of the nation's de facto white party, look better than they do.

How four ninjas became three

A bit of innocent atrocity from my childhood, captured on VHS (back in the nineties, when people still did that sort of thing). I'm in the Bears t-shirt and shorts. Be forewarned, this video, particularly with the volume turned up, isn't for the squeamish:



Boys will be boys.