Frank and Bartels

I do not think that Frank is entirely correct in some of the assumptions he makes about red and blue states here, but as for his argument that culture outweighs economics in politics, I think he is correct. You have to consider where Kansas is located, what kinds of people are living there and what they do for a living when you consider this argument between Frank and Bartells.

I’ll first talk about the assumptions and comparisons he makes and of red and blue states…
Correct me if im wrong, but isn’t Wisconsin a blue state? I have lived here my entire life, and when I look at all of the things he says about blue states, some of things I do not believe to be true. Both Kansas and Wisconsin are in the Midwest, WI was a blue state and KS was red. We are sort of similar, we like beer, guns, hunting, farming, and nascar. Now onto the arguments.

First of all, I would say that Wisconsin is a fairly humble state…what do we have to brag about? Our dairy farms, beer, cheeses and terrible professional sports teams? I do not see the people that live here as “snobs” or as people who like to “show off”. This is something I see in California (which I realize is a blue state as well), but not here.

How does he even measure that Red states have a better relationship with God than blue states do? Isnt that a little bit subjective? How can one tell if one state is more religious than the other just based on partisanship? As a Marquette alum, I can tell you that it is a campus full of Catholics who get up on Sundays hungover as hell to go to mass. Now if that’s not devotion to your religion then I don’t know what is. In fact, many of my teachers there were Catholic priests, most of whom were, liberals.

“A Red stater is courteous, kind and cheerful” According to the census bureau (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html) Out of the top 10 states with the highest crime rates, 7 of them were Red, southern states. I don’t think that’s very courteous, kind and cheerful. I also know that most of you, like myself, hold the stereotype of the shotgun totting redneck southern farmer.

“A Red stater is a regular, down-home working stiff, whereas Blue staters are always some sort of pretentious paper-shuffler” I thought farmers got up at the crack of dawn to milk cows, bail hay, and tend to crops until the sun went down? I didn’t know they shuffled paper all day.

On to the culture aspect of things…we have talked this entire semester about political parties, candidates, candidates image and how those factors are major contributors to who people vote for. People in Kansas are farmers. They wear ranglers, flannel shirts, straw hats and live on the ranch all day similar to the cowboy George Bush himself. They probably saw George Bush as someone they could relate to.

In terms of culture, values and issues being more important than money when it comes to politics in Kansas, I agree with this to an extent. Generally farmers are more conservative in their politics, even if they are from the poorest county in the nation. Their values and beliefs are what form their political ideologies, we learned that as well this semester. Conservatives, especially those from Kansas, are bound to have Conservative views on issues such as abortion, gun control, taxes, womens roles, immigration and the like. And because they are hard working farmers, they want lower taxes and believe in the ability to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they don’t want government hand outs. I think where Kansas and Wisconsin differ and the reason why one is a blue state and the other is a red is because of their culture.