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From Red to Blue tee ballot. • In Colorado, police harnessed Latino canvassers during the week leading up to election day. • In Florida, 46 voters were challenged by one Tea Party activist in Miami-Dade County, and 77 were challenged in the Tampa area by another. The voters were forced to cast provisional ballots, which aren’t counted until 10 days after the election and have high rejection rates. Still, the end result of all this voter suppression and obstruction was failure at the presidential level. Republicans were far more successful with a less recognized approach to thwarting voters’ will in races for the House of Representatives—partisan redistricting. ThinkProgress reported a Democratic popular vote margin of 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent—a 6-point swing from 2010. “This discrepancy between popular votes and seat counts is the largest since 1950,” wrote Sam Wang at the Princeton Election
where the postindustrial economy thrives. The results bear this out as well. Obama won all 10 of the top states with the highest percentage of college graduates in the over 25 age group. Romney won 9 of the bottom ten states. What’s more, the counties Obama won are tightly clustered and more densely populated, matching the ideopolis thesis. The long-running World Values Survey strongly indicates that post-industrialism has a distinctive values thrust towards greater openness, gender equity, and quality concerns, such as environmentalism and participatory democracy, all summed up under the heading of “post-materialism”. This correlates well with bringing five new women into the Senate—for a record 20 female members—as well as the sharp reversal in voting on gay marriage initiatives, which saw a string of 32 consecutive defeats end dramatically, with three gay marriage initiatives pass-
Honoring America’s Veterans on USS Iowa About 1,000 attendees arrived to honor America’s veterans of wars past and present at the USS Iowa on Nov. 10. Veterans span wars going back to World War II. The free event featured live music from The Swing of Things, Rock for Vets and The Riptides band. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Councilman Joe Buscaino pledge that the Veterans Appreciation Day will become an annual event. Pictured, right, with the mayor and City Attorney Carmen Trutanich is Gene Dick, survivor of the USS Oklahoma when the battleship was sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II. Photos: Betty Guevara.
First Lady Michelle Obama, First Daughters Sasha and Malia join re-elected President Barack Obama on stage Nov. 6 in Chicago.
November 16 - 29, 2012
The total for all these states—which Obama carried by an aggregate average of around 2 to 3 percent—was 73-34, better than 2 to 1 Republican. If these states had split their delegations 50-50, Democrats would have gained another 20 seats and retaken the House. In addition to the growth of minorities, Judis and Teixeira pointed to increased college education and the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy as trends producing more Democratic voters. They coined the word “ideopolis” for areas
ing (Maine, Maryland and Washington) and one ban going down to defeat (in Minnesota). It also correlates with the shifting ground on marijuana prohibition, where progress is advancing, albeit unevenly. Medical marijuana was approved in Massachusetts, the 17th state to approve it, but defeated in Arkansas, while state-regulated sales were approved in Washington, but defeated in Oregon, and Colorado legalized possession under one ounce. Finally, two key figures embody much of the hope and promise on which the future of a possible Democratic majority depends. Tammy Baldwin, a well-established House progressive, has become the first openly lesbian senator. She has a strong labor record that is not just reflected in her voting, but her passionate advocacy. She’ll be joined by Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor with an Oakie twang, whose politics recall former House Speaker and Senator Fred Harris, humorist Will Rogers, and the ghost of Tom Joad. The party’s future may well depend on the ability of women leaders like them to fuse the materialist working class politics of the Democrats’ past glory with the post-materialist politics embodied in their very presence. With any luck, one or both of them will run for President some day.
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Consortium website. He concluded that the “structural unfairness” due to redistricting could be as high as 5 percent of the popular vote. “That is incredible,” he wrote. “Clearly nonpartisan redistricting reform would be in our democracy’s best interests.” Nick Baumann, of Mother Jones magazine,. Compiled the following list of close states, Obama vote margins and House seat margins: State Obama Vote GOP Vote North Carolina -1.2% 9-4% Florida +0.5 (provisional) 17-10 Ohio +2 12-4 Virginia +3 8-3 Pennsylvania +5 13-5 Wisconsin +6 5-3 Michigan +8 9-5
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