Wampum

Many Reds got Redder...

But so did many blues.

Source: Washington Post

Interesting trend is the Rocky Mountain states - New Mexico (which did go to Bush, but saw Democratic gains as well), Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. The reality in 2008 is that Democrats only have a shot at New Mexico and Colorado, but it bodes well for state-level politics in the others.

John Judis and Ruy Teixeira never promised a Democratic Majority would happen overnight.

I think we tend to look to national leaders and policies to make the map turn blue. But the reason that Maine went bluer is because it has one of, if not the most involved and educated electorates, along with the highest voter turnout rate (over 70% this election.) Maine is not only getting bluer, internally, it's getting Greener, with Maine Green on state and local levels making the largest gains ever, with many candidates garnering over 30% of the vote.

Ironically, Maine also has the highest proportion of the electorate, 38%, unaffiliated (or unenrolled, as we term it here) with any political party. So on some level it seems unusual that Maine should be shifting so far to the "left".

Not that we don't have our own rightwing nutcases. Michael Heath and the Maine Christian Civic League time again try to foist their anti-gay/anti-woman bigotry on the Pine Tree State. Most times they're soundly rebuked, but once in a while they make a gain here or there, more due to the incompetence of the oppositional effort than to the appeal of their message.

But Maine's Progressives have made gains by going on the offensive with their agenda. In 1996, the Maine Citizen Leadership Fund passes the first public financing of elections law in the country. Last year, after a groundswell of support from Progressive organizations such as the Maine People's Alliance, the Maine Legislature passed the first in the nation universal healthcare program. While not currently a single-payer program, chances are that it's only time that it will move into that category.

This year, despite some of the highest per capital taxes in the nation, Maine voters, by a 2-to-1 margin, beat back a California-Prop-13-style property tax cap, which would have devastated local schools and governments.

Ironically, the greatest potential for undermining Maine's Progressive trend is the inability of the Democrat-controlled Legislature to pass meaningful tax reform. Partisanship within the House and Senate (and competition between the two chambers) has led some voters to seek alternatives to the current crop of legislators, leading to the loss of 5 seats for the House Dems.

My goal of the next few years is to overcome the potential damage of legislative partisanship to a Progressive agenda, namely through such initiatives as establishing a non-partisan legislature and electoral reforms, a la Instant Runoff Voting. Make Maine Bluer...or at least more Progressive.

Addendum: Although only 20 states (or 19 + DC) made Democratic gains, nine states saw no change at all. Hence only 22 states actually got redder, with the average change only 2.36%. Gains in Democratic states, on the other hand, averaged 3.0%.

nota bene: changed the title - not enough coffee when I started thinking about the subject, obviously.

Posted by MB Williams at November 6, 2004 07:34 AM | TrackBack