Here’s a quick map of the newly released May 2009 metropolitan area unemployment numbers. On this map, color signifies the rate in May 2009 and size of bubble indicates the rate point change since May of last year. Green dots are below the national unemployment level of 9.1 in May, and red dots are above the national number.

Looks like you could draw a line from Phoenix to Savannah and hit towns that are all beating the national average in unemployment.

Here’s the problem with their analysis: The term “Sun Belt” refers to a region that spans from San Jose to Baton Rouge and from Cape Hatteras to Albuquerque, but the only things that culturally unite Scottsdale to Vero Beach are spring training and old people playing golf.

I understand that the authors are writing the obituary for the real estate Ponzi schemes of Phoenix and Florida, but writing off the entire so-called Sun Belt is ham-handed at best.  After all, which city is doing better, Austin or Akron?  Which will make a quicker comeback, Charlotte or Cleveland? And perhaps most importantly, which states are gaining seats in Congress after redistricting?

While some areas of the Sun Belt are certainly looking gloomy, here’s a more accurate regional forecast:

• The Southwest, as defined by the cactus golf course states, is indeed looking dark and stormy;
• The Southeast, as defined by the states with SEC schools (plus NC), has a partly cloudy outlook, with the exception of Florida, which has Cat 5 economic hurricanes bearing down on it;
• And in between Dixie and the desert, Texas looks positively sunny.

Southwest. It’s a total mess out there. “You can make a strong case that the California dream is all but dead,” wrote Californian Joel Kotkin recently. “The state is effectively bankrupt, its political leadership discredited and the economy, with some exceptions, doing considerably worse than most anyplace outside Michigan.”  For the first time since the Golden State was admitted to the Union in 1851, it will not be gaining a seat in Congress after the 2012 reapportionment.

Arizona will likely gain two seats, but it’s not doing too much better. The state’s economy was built on a “growth for the sake of growth” ethos, and so when prices dropped 40% in a matter of months, the economy fell off a cliff faster that Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner. “An economy like Phoenix is like a shark – it can’t stop, it can’t even run slow,” noted Andrew Kirby in a recent column.

Southeast. “The South is much better poised to recover than it would have been a generation ago,” Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South, told me over the phone recently.  In white-collar jobs, Charlotte is the nation’s No. 2 banking center and Triangle rivals Boston as the nation’s biotech hub.  In blue-collar jobs, Tupelo will start producing the Prius soon and Talladega cranked out 800,000 Benz’s last year.  The seaboard South was “marching briskly into the new economy” before the recession hit, according to Guillory, and is well-positioned to rebound.

Florida, on the other hand, is the sick child of the South and has been hit by home foreclosures as hard as the southwest. St. Pete’s Times reporter Adam Smith, who I consider the best political writer in the state, thinks the recession will have political ramifications. “Most observers had long predicted Florida would gain two or even three addition congressional seats with reapportionment,” Smith recently emailed me. “The slow down in population growth could mean Florida gains just one seat.”

Texas.  Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, McAllen, and San Antonio were all listed among the 20 strongest cities in Brookings Institution’s recent report tracking the recession in America’s 100 largest metro areas.   What’s more, Texas is set to gain a whoppin’ four seats in congressional reapportionment!

This map from Daily Yonder shows that most counties in the Lone Star State are either holding their own or actually improving.

So while pockets of the Inland Empire are crumbling and real estate in Ft. Myers is falling, it’s foolish to write off a region that stretches from Orange County, Florida to Orange County, California.  

(h/t FamousDC)

Click here for a bigger map

A few interesting points:

• Talk about a base - In Criegh’s home county and three surrounding counties - Bath, Allegheny, Highland and Rockbridge - 4398 votes were cast. 4091 were for Creigh.  In all of Highland County, for example, Moran got only 3 votes while Creigh received over 1200.
• Creigh won Clinton voters - Remember the Obama-Clinton map where Clinton won everywhere west of the Blue Ridge and Obama won the urban crescent? Well, it’s clear that Creigh won many of those same Clinton voters.
• Dissecting the Obama coalition - Creigh will have no problem winning the Prius drivers in Arlington and Alexandria who are true blue Dems and lovingly supported Jim Webb despite some conservative views. What Creigh needs to worry about is the other leg of the Obama coalition - African-American voters in Richmond, Southside and Tidewater.
• Terry won the black vote - Terry won a plurality in Bobby Scott’s district that stretches from the Seven Cities up to east Richmond. I remember Terry’s early ads were at the Newport News shipyard, and he later visited Hampton with Will.i.am. He needed to do really well there, not just win a plurality.
• Don’t sleep on C’Ville - Charlottesville and Albemarle are major bastions of liberal Democratic votes. The fact that Creigh’s state Senate seat covers these communities gave him a strong start in this crucial pocket.
• The WaPo effect - Most armchair pundits think Creigh won because of his Washington Post endorsement. In reality, Creigh locked up downstate voters with cheap TV ads early and only contested NoVA once he got the endorsement. He wasn’t scheduled to appear at the VA FREE lunch until he won the WaPo nod, and his signs cropped up virtually overnight up here.
• A balanced ticket - My sources tell me that Gov. Tim Kaine is psyched about the geographic balance of the ticket - A Gov candidate from the hills, an LG candidate from the Beach, and an AG candidate from the NoVA burbs.  Republicans, for their part, also boast a balanced ticket with VA Beach, Richmond and Fairfax County all represented.
• What about NoVA? - For the second gubernatorial election in a row, both parties elected candidates from outside NoVA.  So will the ad wars be fought in Roanoke, Richmond and Hampton Roads, or will they spend the big money in Washington?
• The Clintons just don’t play well in VA - Bill Clinton never won Virginia, despite taking a number of border states, including West Virginia and Kentucky.  Hillary got smoked here. And Bill’s right hand man Terry ultimately failed.  Maybe those Clinton robocalls hurt more than they helped?
• The engine of VA - Virginia’s economic success has a big part to do with the booms in Fairfax, Loudoun, Price William and Henrico counties - Creigh won all of these, just like Kaine did in the ‘05 general and Obama did in the ‘08 general.

So how will Creigh Deeds stack up against Bob McDonnell?  That’s the subject of another post, but it’s clear that the map is going to be dynamic and scrambled and that the battlegrounds will be constantly evolving.  NoVA, which accounts for one out of every seven votes in Virginia, is obviously the big prize, but Deeds will certainly try to make inroads in McDonnell’s base in Hampton Roads and we can bet on McDonnell going for the F-150 Democrats in Creigh’s neck of the woods.  Let the games begin.

ALBANY – Democrats appeared to have lost their majority in the New York State Senate on Monday, in a stunning and sudden reversal of fortunes for a party that has controlled the chamber for barely five months.

A raucous leadership fight erupted on the floor of the Senate around 3 p.m., with two Democrats, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, joining the 30 Senate Republicans in a motion that would displace Democrats as the party in control.

My cousin who lives in NYC says that the live TV feed of the floor was mysteriously shut off directly after the vote, so it looks like they’re playing some hardball up in Albany.

Currently, Dems control the state House by a 107-41 margin (that ain’t gonna change) and the governoship.  New York is set to lose two of its 29 seats after redistricting, so if this balance holds, Democrats risk losing a seat in Congress.

“[Have we] witnessed the Rise and Fall of the Sun Belt? Will those who swept into those Miracle-Gro states get swept out just as quickly, leaving behind a sprawl of hollow houses, cul-de-sac moonscapes and mosquito-infested pools — the stucco ghettos of the 21st century?”

I plan to write a full length post about my opinion’s on this and what affect, if any, the economic recession in the Sun Belt will have on American politics, in both numbers and psyche, as well as my predictions of whether the Sun Belt can regain the economic/political/cultural clout it enjoyed around 2003 when Bush was in the White House, DeLay ran Congress and NASCAR posted consistent record profits.

But first I wanted to pose a few questions to TEM’s readers.  Hit up the comment section or email me at patottenhoff@gmail.com if you’re interested.

• Is the Sun Belt really in its “twilight”?  Wasn’t Roger Clemens said to be in the “twilight of his career” when the Red Sox let him go?   How can a region be in a twilight?
• If the Sun Belt is indeed in decline, are predictions that it will gain congressional seats at the Rust Belt’s expense premature?
• How will this affect the psyche and tone of American politics?
• Should Charlotte and Triangle be considered hubs of finance and biotech, respectively, or just merely regional outposts?
• Can the Sun Belt regain its strength on the backs of the energy sector?

GM Plants

GM Suppliers

GM Retirees

]]> http://theelectoralmap.com/2009/06/02/the-scope-of-gm/feed/ http://theelectoralmap.com/2009/05/31/obama-sotomayor-and-the-urbanism-of-the-federal-government/ http://theelectoralmap.com/2009/05/31/obama-sotomayor-and-the-urbanism-of-the-federal-government/#comments Sun, 31 May 2009 21:19:47 +0000 Patrick Ottenhoff http://theelectoralmap.com/?p=943 Chris Murray at the interesting demographics/politics blog Election Dissection and Burt Solomon, writing in the Post, are just two of the commentators who have taken a look at how SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s experience growing up in the rough-and-tumble housing projects in The Bronx’s Soundview neighborhood shape her outlook on life and consequently her interpretation of the law.

Murray noted that Sotomayor hails from the poorest congressional district in the nation and one that gave Barack Obama a whoppin’ 95% of its vote in 2008!  And Solomon, in his fascinating column “What the Bronx Would Bring to the Bench,” implies that her “gritty upbringing” is unique among justices and can tell us something about her priorities and concerns.

Soundview subway stop (compliments of jag9889)

But when you think about it, won’t Sotomayor’s urban background be consistent with the current leaders of the U.S. government?  It’s been widely noted that Barack Obama is the nation’s first “urban” president. He’s spent all of his adult life in the old-school cities of Chicago, New York and Boston.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a product of Baltimore and the representative of San Francisco, two classic American cities.  And Vice President Biden feels most at home on the Metroliner.

In many ways, Obama, Pelosi and Sotomayor embody urban America: Among the three, there is a black man, a white lady and a Latina (and Obama’s CoS is a Jew).  They also have backgrounds in both strains of American urbanism - poverty and rich elite, or Anacostia and Georgetown - that top demographer Joel Kotkin has identified.  Obama cut his teeth on the rough South Side, but later lived in Hyde Park, where “black and white are united against the poor.” Pelosi’s family came from gritty Baltimore, but she is the embodiment of a rich San Francisco liberal.

Obama in Chicago

Regardless of their economic place in life, they are city-dwellers through and through, which is a major contrast to the previous administration.  George W. Bush, although a faux Texan, was one for the country and embraced his home on the range.  VP Cheney was an energy baron from Wyoming.  Ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert hailed form the Illinois Prairie.  And for a consistent comparison, Bush’s most prized SCOTUS appointment, Chief Justice John Roberts, grew up in a small Indiana town.

Bush in Texas

I think we’ve already seen how this shift in the background of our leaders has affected the priorities of the U.S. government.  The lion’s share of federal stimulus money has gone to national banks and automakers, the bedrocks of New York and Detroit, respectively.  And unlike FDR’s New Deal, which fueled rural development operations like the Tennessee Valley Administration, Obama’s new New Deal has prioritized urban projects such as high-speed rail.

I think the nation is somewhere in between these two administrations, both politically but also geographically.  We’re a suburban nation – a plurality of Americans live in the suburbs and suburbs are the key swing vote.  Obama couldn’t have won the presidency without winning Wake County, N.C., and Orange County, Fla., or making gains in Hamilton County, Ind. I grew up in Fairfax County, Va., which voted for GWB in 2000 but gave Obama a seven-point victory in 2008.  Whichever party can win over these voters and emphasize their priorities holds the keys to long-term electoral success.

From Map the Fallen author:

This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died.

First, let me give my thoughts on the primary. With his official residence here, Romney will be a constant presence in the Granite State the next four years and won’t have to explain to those pesky reporters what he’s doing up there. As the former governor to a neighboring state, Romney has high name ID and the local Republicans will probably embrace his desire to flee Taxachusetts (as many of them have probably done).

However, if Romney does win the primary, I don’t think it gives him much of an upper hand in the general election. New Hampshire is probably gone for Republicans for good. Granite State Republicans controlled both houses of the state Legislature from 1911 to 2006 and controlled at least the governorship or Legislature from 1876 to 2006. As recently as 2004, they had two U.S. House and two U.S. Senate seats. These are not temporary whims, they are tectonic shifts.

But at the same time, some things never change in New Hampshire. It’s a state of “entrepreneurs and high-tech innovators,” according to the Almanac, and is prosperous and “skeptical of government programs.” This sounds like the ideology of Romney he got tangled up in the purity tests of the culturally conservative wing of the GOP. It sounds like the beliefs of Mitt Romney, the CEO of Bain Capital and the Olympic Games.

Romney’s move not only solves his ideological identity crisis, but also his geographic one. He grew up in Michigan, went to school and ran the Olympics in Utah, managed Bain and governed in Massachusetts, and has a vacation home in New Hampshire. So what does he tell people when they ask where he’s from?

In an article early in the primary process in 2007, Jonathan Martin wrote about candidates like Romney who are national figures rather than politicians with local roots. Barack Obama (Hawaii, Indonesia, Ivy League, Chicago) John McCain (Virginia Beach, U.S. Navy, Arizona) and Hillary Clinton (Chicago, Arkansas, The White House, New York) are other examples. “These are the candidates from nowhere — or everywhere,” he wrote.

For Romney, Martin observed:

Romney arguably has a more solid claim on his Massachusetts ties. Despite his Michigan roots and undergraduate work at Stanford and Brigham Young University, Romney came to Cambridge for a joint MBA/JD in the 1970s and stayed. Still, there was no lack of buzz about his seeking office in Utah after he took over the Salt Lake City Olympic Games. In an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune in 2001, Romney acknowledged his desire to run but appeared conflicted about where to launch his political career. Somewhere between the “geographical poles” of Utah and Massachusetts, he said vaguely when asked in which state it would be. He’ll underscore the point next week when he makes his official announcement — at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich.

In New Hampshire, Romney seems to have found an ideological and geographic home that suits him. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him launching his 2012 campaign from the heart of the Granite State.