We are watching a state (NC) secede from "The New South"

[cthulu2016]

North Carolina was the vanguard of the "New South," that supposedly civilized part of the south that had moved on from 1960s relict confederate obstructionism.

North Carolina, as the story went, had good schools, good climate, moderate leadership, low taxes and little history of unionism. Just the place for rust belt companies to relocate. Tech companies could cluster around Duke and UNC.

But thanks to America having the temerity to elect a black president a few times, North Carolina has become among the five most retrograde states in the nation.

Appending an abortion ban to a bill to outlaw Sharia is like a wing-nut inside the park home run. Now they're eliminating unemployment insurance?

That kind of unstable, unpredictable ideological spasm is really not what S&P 500 type businesses want. It does not make a state attractive to outsiders, and suggests that the "new south" was never a reliable investment.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

1. I was really worried about that Sharia Law coming to get me.

As you know, North Carolina is steeped in Islamic Law. Thank Allah the reactionaries had the chutzpah to outlaw it!

[AlBratt]

2. North Carolina

For sure and certain North Carolina Politics is rotten to the core and smelling awfully.

[bluestate10]

4. There is hope. New Hampshire went the teabagger route in 2010, electing a teabagger

Senator and overwhelmingly turning the legislature over to republicans. State voters surprisingly kept the moderate democratic Governor. The republican legislature went wild, passing all types of crazy rightwing laws and picking fights with the Governor. Fast forward to the 2012 election. President Obama beat Romney in the state after a competitive race, but New Hampshire voters went on a historic republican bloodletting spree. Voters in the state eliminated the two republican members from the US House and routed republicans in the state legislature. The state is now firmly in democratic control and is flourishing economically as democrats focused on bread and butter issues.

[marions ghost]

8. Did the NH legislature

pass the kind of crazy teabag Koch-fueled laws like NC is passing?

[RobertEarl]

9. NH stopped vote stealing

The activists there have been fighting for years to make vote counting honest. Looks like they finally succeeded?

I don't think NC is in the same class as NH.

[marions ghost]

13. So you don't think that

NC can turn around because of vote stealing? (Just asking for clarification).

[RobertEarl]

14. Yes.

There have been a ton of voting irregularities in NC over the past few elections. And no one even thinks twice. When NC passed a paper voting bill in 2005, many Dems got elected, even Obama in '08. That progress has eroded.

Oh, sure, I could be wrong, but my experience tells me I am not.

[marions ghost]

15. Yes irregularities and the gerrymandering

which is going to be contested in court apparently, on grounds that it was racially motivated.

[RobertEarl]

16. People just don't seem to care

Many a flipped vote in local elections. Ask about an audit and you get looked at like an ingrate. The machines still count the votes. ES&S still rules.

[marions ghost]

18. Yes some counties still have the paperless DRE voting machines

..thanks to the Booshcheney HAVA giveaway to ES&S and co. Some counties have discontinued them and gone back to optiscan. But you're right, an audit is impossible. Yes lots of votes are flipped and miscounted in NC. Santa's little helpers...busy busy.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. North Carolina went for Obama in 2008 and nearly did again in 2012

There are good people there.

What's going on here is another example of just how batshit crazy Republicans are and how we need to make sure Republicans don't make gains in 2014 like they did in 2010.

Don't let people tell you Dems are the same as Republicans.

It's funny how some people say Dems and the same as Republicans. Well just take a look at Republicans North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin and Texas....then tell me they are the same as Dems.

[sheshe2]

5. +1

Thanks Cali-Democrat! Well said.

[wandy]

27. +1 Spot on! nt

[WorseBeforeBetter]

6. Attributing it to the "black president" is simplistic...

Last edited Thu Aug 1, 2013, 11:02 PM - Edit history (1)

although many Teabaggers did run to the polls in 2010 and 2012 for that reason. North Carolinians also ran to the polls as a vote against the ACA. Obama carried NC in 2008 by fewer than 14,000 votes, so it's not like this state was a given in 2012. I fault him for not spending more time in this state assuaging Death Panel/government takeover fears. We have the 5th worst unemployment in the nation, and many voted against the party in power because of anemic economic recovery. That's one reason we have Pat McCrory as governor -- many indies and Democrats voted for the "moderate mayor from Charlotte" because they were desperate for jobs. Dems out-voted Republicans in 2010 and 2012 in straight-party voting, but gerrymandering fucked us in 2012. (And the NC GOP, in its voter suppression efforts, has since eliminated straight-party voting.) We're now stuck with Republicans in control for the first time in over a century, and they are exacting some SERIOUS revenge. It's astonishing to watch this state unravel.

NC NAACP report card for the current NC Legislature, with many Dems casting some pretty shitty/harmful votes:

http://www.democracy-nc.org/downloads/ReportCardSpring2013.pdf

I think you're absolutely right with this statement:

That kind of unstable, unpredictable ideological spasm is really not what S&P 500 type businesses want. It does not make a state attractive to outsiders, and suggests that the "new south" was never a reliable investment.

...and $$$$ is the ONLY thing the GOP will understand.

[marions ghost]

7. Important to remember that there is serious buyer's remorse in NC

--less than 20% of the population now supports the governor's agenda, which few could even imagine when he was elected. And he outright lied about a lot of it when questioned before the election. He's obviously a Koch puppet. NC got heavily Koched --just like how ALEC hit Florida. Other states are targeted, but NC was low-hanging fruit.

This will hurt the business prospects for North Carolina. Who wants to live and work in a damaged, depressed and downwardly mobile state?

NC has been hijacked. That does leave hope that it can be turned around. What happened was so evil and wrong it's a classic case of greed and corruption. We'll see how the lawsuits re. election rigging turn out...

Meanwhile the people suffer. They did NOT bargain for this, you may be sure.

[struggle4progress]

10. What really happened is this: we lost 2010, and so the Republicans could gerrymander the districts

The 13 Congressional districts tell the story clearly

About 4.36 million N Carolinians voted for a D or R for Congress in 2012

About 2.22 million voted for a D and about 2.14 voted for an R

So if the districts had been fair, we would have expected about 7 Ds and about 6 Rs in the Congressional delegation

Instead we got 4 Ds and 9 Rs

The numbers in the districts show what happened

In districts where Ds won, they won with an average lead of about 133K votes

But in districts where Rs won, they won with an average lead of about 50K votes

The Republican gerrymandered to concentrate Ds into a few districts, to overcome the overall D majority

[Lex]

17. +1

[hfojvt]

19. be interesting to see a map of before and after

[struggle4progress]

21. You may be able to get that here:

http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/webapps/redistrict/NCRedistrictMapSingle.html

Whether it works or not could depend on your browser or browser settings. For some reason, it worked for me with Chrome but not with Firefox

[hfojvt]

22. gotta say that the districts from 2001

look pretty funky too.

There's that district that looks like it is following a winding river. And the two eastern districts are all jagged instead of having straight lines.

One might complain about the 2010 results

1.44 million Republican votes cast, and 1.20 Democratic votes cast. And yet only 6 Republicans elected and 7 Democrats.

I also note that incumbents won in 9 of the 13 districts in 2012 and for some reason 3 districts did not have an incumbent.

[struggle4progress]

24. Just did the 2010 Congressional Districts same as 2012 above:

About 2.66 million N Carolinians voted for a D or R for Congress in 2010

About 1.20 million voted for a D and about 1.45 million voted for an R

So if the districts had been fair, we would have expected about 6 Ds and about 7 Rs in the Congressional delegation from 2010

What we actually got was 7 Ds and about 6 Rs, which about as close as you can get to the expected result without hitting it exactly

01 D Butterfield
02 R Ellmers
03 R Jones
04 D Price
05 R Foxx
06 R Coble
07 D McIntyre
08 D Kissell
09 R Myrick
10 R McHenry
11 D Shuler
12 D Watt
13 D Miller

In 2010: district skew towards Ds maybe cost Rs 1 seat
In 2012: district skew towards Rs maybe cost Ds 3 seat

In 2010, Rs were more concentrated in R districts than Ds in D districts:
In districts where Ds won 2010, they won with an average lead of about 29K votes
In districts where Rs won 2010, they won with an average lead of about 74K votes
The difference between the 2010 district leads is about 46K votes
The difference between the 2012 district leads is about 83K votes

So the 2012 maps are much more partisan

[hfojvt]

26. not sure about those last lines

"The difference between the 2010 district leads is about 46K votes
The difference between the 2012 district leads is about 83K votes "

One might expect a bigger gap in a Presidential year than in an off year. In an off year, results can be skewed by GOTV efforts. Less so in a Presidential year. Better to compare 2012 to 2008. The balance was 8-5 in favor of Democrats, then slipped to 7-6 and then to 4-9.

But the Democratic districts in 2008 were 1,2,4,7,8,11,12,13.

But in 2012 there was NO incumbent in 11 or 13. Where did those two Democratic incumbents go? Losing them changes the playing field, because an incumbent typically has a big advantage in name recognition and money and gets taxpayer help for their campaign. It is another factor besides Gerrymandering to explain results.

[struggle4progress]

30. OK: here's 2008

About 4.20 million N Carolinians voted for a D or R for Congress in 2010

About 2.29 million voted for a D and about 1.90 million voted for an R

So if the districts had been fair, we would have expected about 7 Ds and about 6 Rs in the Congressional delegation from 2010

What we actually got was 8 Ds and about 5 Rs

In 2008: district skew towards Ds maybe cost Rs 1 seat
In 2010: district skew towards Ds maybe cost Rs 1 seat
In 2012: district skew towards Rs maybe cost Ds 3 seat

In 2008, Ds were more concentrated in D districts than Rs in R districts:
In districts where Ds won 2008, they won with an average lead of about 101K votes
In districts where Rs won 2008, they won with an average lead of about 82K votes
In districts where Ds won 2010, they won with an average lead of about 29K votes
In districts where Rs won 2010, they won with an average lead of about 74K votes
In districts where Ds won 2012, they won with an average lead of about 133K votes
In districts where Rs won 2012, they won with an average lead of about 50K votes
The difference between the 2008 district leads is about 18K votes
The difference between the 2010 district leads is about 46K votes
The difference between the 2012 district leads is about 83K votes

So the current maps really are much more partisan than the previous ones

[struggle4progress]

25. You may enjoy looking at the 2011 State House and Senate maps

with particular attention to oddities like State House District 83 or State Senate District 41

[marions ghost]

20. Still don't know why that was legal

and am glad it is being contested in court...

Excellent breakdown of that gerrymandering topic--

[octoberlib]

29. Thank you for posting the facts. nt

[MFrohike]

11. Just a tip

It helps to actually know the facts on the ground before lecturing us. It's far less embarrassing for you.

[Generic Brad]

12. I am optimistic this will change

The Republicans overplayed their hand there and will face a backlash. They may win in the short term, but they are scorching and then salting the earth around them for the long term.

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. I think they're just suiting up for next season's "Stupidest State" series.

Why should they just stand by and let the same half dozen districts of dolt make the finals year after year.

Floriduh, Arizona, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama (they don't count so good neither), always the same powerhouses of pointlessness every year with no real challenges in sight.

Well this year is going to be different. North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan are all indicating a real willingness to put in the work and get into the post season this year, and it's still not too late for some late season dark horse (I'm looking at you Kansas) to break out from the pack and steal the crown.

[DonCoquixote]

28. It boils down to

The fact that much of the investment that made NC grow was from bankers. Yes, you had a lot of Northerners move down there, but they were the sort of Northerners that hated Taxes. It was only a matter of time before the Dixiecrats and the NYC "Centrists" hooked up and made NC a true Dixie state. That happens in Florida too, save that we did not attract bankers, who would bring down piles of money t the all too willing whores in the State Capitol. We have enough crooks, so I can gladly let B of A have them.

I remember that some wanted to move the Democratic Convention out of Charlotte, but some wanted to keep it there because NC was supposedly a purple state. Lo and behold, they turned Red, unlike the state the GOP had their convention in, the much hated Florida, which turned blue, especially Tampa, where the convention's attempts to snub local businesses actually made locals pissed at them. Sadly, if I knew then what I know now, I would have had them move the convention to Chicago or Milwaukee.