The Democratic Party's Problem With Married People

The Christian Science Moniter reports:

A simple regression equation matching county characteristics against vote outcomes across 3,142 counties shows two significant variables: population density and the percentage of married households vs. female heads of household. For example, of the 100 counties with the lowest proportions of married households, Mr. Gore won 85 and Mr. Kerry won 90. Of the 100 counties with the highest proportions of married households, Bush won 96 in 2000 and 97 in 2004.

With one exception, age, sex, and race/ethnic characteristics are very weakly correlated with the votes - this includes classifications of Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, native Americans, and mixed race. But counties with higher proportions of white residents tended to vote for Bush while those counties with higher proportions of blacks tended to vote for Gore or Kerry. However, proportions of black voters are also highly correlated with female heads of household, and this proved to be the more significant factor.

These results offer us more reasonable insights into party polarization. Certainly urban singles, with or without children, have different policy priorities than suburban and rural married couples. These differences are somewhat reflected in the platforms of the two parties. The purpose of politics is to reconcile different preferences and order social priorities. But one suspects there's more to this story.

The issue of religion may give us a clue, but not the one we assume. It's not religious belief that distinguishes red rural from blue urban, but church attendance. Church attendance serves different functions in rural and urban communities. Whereas in rural Oklahoma church is the place to meet neighbors and friends on Sunday morning, in the city, that social function may be better served by Starbucks.

The Democratic base doesn't seem to be reproducing.How ironic though,because where are abortion rights most popular? None other than childless urban America.