What's the matter with you, America?

This week we have read a discussion on the subject of an argument presented by Thomas Frank, who asserts midwestern poor farmers have been "tricked" by the Republican party to vote against their economic interest. He argues that the policies that republicans enact favor the rich and not the poor and middle class. The so-called "fooled" voters support, however primarily because of the Republican's campaign on morals and family values. in effect they create a populist appeal while actually putting into place elite favoring policy. Frank calls this the "backlash" effect. there is a greater impact of the backlash effect. it represents a "partisan dealignment" which is in effect when voters break rank with what their economic interests and create an inconsistency with the indicators we use to determine partisan preference. Bartels, another author argues that this is wrong, and that frank is guilty of what could be effectively considered to be sampling bias, and that he is in actuality measuring activists, rather than the actual public opinion. Bartels claims that southerners who are typically poor have become more republican and are thus accounting for the partisan spread.

I personally think that Bartels is wrong. I think that conservatives have done very well in the "bible belt: and that it is a relatively poor area. also when we examine local governments, I believe that the partisan dealignment manifests itself best there. all over the midwest even in our state here, we see many local governments in the more rural and less affluent counties and communities lean more to the right. as Tip O'Neil said "all politics is local" and if we want to measure a substantive partisan shift it would be best expressed across the full stratification of government - national voting rates, state, county and municipal.