I object to "liberal views" being assigned negative numbers and "conservative views" with positive numbers.

It should be reversed!

Interesting how WV and KY are the most socially conservative states but definitely on the liberal side of the economic divide.

I note that my state VA seems closest to the center of the scales. I'm not sure they are so reasonable here, but we did elect fairly rational moderate pragmatists like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine to Governor. BTW those scales are rather phony since it is debatable where a lot of issues belong. One could argue, like Ron Paul and the alternate conservatarian crowd, that most of what "conservatives" are doing about foreign policy, economy (attitude towards debt), civil liberties, planning for the future, maybe even taxes (differential rates for earned versus investment income is not really a flat rate and serves to meddle in economic decisions, etc.) isn't really conservative anyway in proper philosophical (and therefore, legitimate definitional) terms.

I'm not surprised to find that the state where I grew up, WI, is in the center, but I AM surprised that my current home state, AZ, is also in the middle. I would definitely categorize AZ as a conservative state, both economically and socially, though we do have a Democratic governor.

I wouldn't be surprised if WV and Kentucky were the most heavily unionized states in the country.

The eastern half of Kentucky and all of West Virginia were once strongholds of the UMWA. Both are still heavy recipients of government monies in the form of welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, SS, and sundry other government programs and subsidies. They are also very poor relative to most of the rest of the country, but they are also highly religious and socially conservative. Having grown up there, I would have been surprised to find either state anywhere else.

The most important lesson is not “to win, move to the center.” The most important lesson is, “to win, articulate you vision and your values.”

One thing Bill Clinton was good at, at least some of the time, was articulating values, as in his Des Moines speech of April 24, 1995, where he said “You know, the America we're trying to build is an old-fashioned America of common sense where hard work is rewarded, where families can be strong, where people can live in the way they want to live if they work hard and play by the rules.”

By articulating our values, we can move people to begin to share our values on both social and economic issues.

(For some reason, Alaska and Hawaii are missing.)

It's probably cheaper to do the research, since those states are so far away.

Note, for example, that there are several "conservative" states that are relatively liberal on the economic scale (West Virginia and Kentucky), but there are no "liberal" states that are socially conservative.

It's probably easier to keep people convinced of conservative opinions on social issues than it is on economic ones, because on the economic ones they're susceptible to a lot of logic (it's a really logical, facts-and-figures ballgame), but on social issues, people who adopt conservative opinions are relying only on irrational "reasons," which for many don't make reference to or even admit of a reasoned retort.

Hey, how about us non-represented, votin' only for the preznit peons here in Ye Olde District of Columbia?

Hey, how about us non-represented, votin' only for the preznit peons here in Ye Olde District of Columbia?

See MA? More so.

"Hey, how about us non-represented, votin' only for the preznit peons here in Ye Olde District of Columbia?"

Quiet, you! Who said you people could even post on blogs!
Now give me some tax money.

OK, so why does Wisconsin (where I lived for a long time) get Feingold (I wonder if the LaFollette tradition isn't adequately reflected in this survey) and California get DiFi?

Actually, I think there's something fairly interesting about this - it seems like a lot of "liberal" states run along the trend line of the chart - in other words, they're relatively equal in "liberalness" along both economic and social axes, and so they fall into an oval running along the lower half of the trend line. On the other hand, the "conservative" states fall into an oval that runs perpendicular to the trend line and even sort of wraps around the end of the "liberal" oval, including states that are somewhat liberal along one trend line but quite conservative along the other, as well as some in the middle that are quite conservative on both axes. That does seem to describe the way I think most people (or at least most Democrats) see the Republican party - a union of two kinds of extremes - and the Democratic party - a group that spreads out along different parts of a fairly coherent spectrum.

Sometimes living in Oklahoma just hurts!

On another note, I am not too crazy about the use of positive and negative numbers in a chart depicting ideologies. Not that I think it is on purpose, but the chart places liberal ideology at the numerically negative position - and this automatically biases perception of the charts meaning. It could just as easily be a C and L on the ends with neutral in the middle.

Sorry Optical Weenie - I probably should have read the FIRST comment already posted!

HungChad: At least your football team hasn't totally left its moorings (like Nebraska--mine). So, you that gives you something to rejoice in with the wingnuts.

http://uk.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=84561
Water [hydrogen] powered car

I find that the liberal versus conversative internet and media battles dont match reality. I live in red state Texas and dont see the great divide that supposedly exists in the public sphere.

Nothing super surprising? Look where LA is. Top 10 conservative on both scales, yet it elects some Democrats. Considerably more than AL on both scales. Look how far right IA is, and it's even more of swing/Dem state. And UT should be off the map but it isn't. Also surprised DE is that liberal economically.

Regarding the very first comment: When I was first working in political science, about 20 years ago, it was standard practice to code Democrats as +1 and Republicans as 0 (for example, in logistic regression). But we've been gradually switching to predicting Republican vote, or to having conservatism be positive and liberalism be negative. This is, to me, the natural way to do it because positive numbers are to the right on the number line and negative numbers are to the left.

Shouldn't it be the 48 CONTIGUOUS states? Isn't Alaska part of North America? Really, will one of you smart people please set me straight on this?

"Shouldn't it be the 48 CONTIGUOUS states?"

Yes. Sometimes you hear them referred to as the "Lower 48" and this is just as wrong. Minnesota is the second most northern state, not Hawaii. In fact, Hawaii is the southernmost state. "Middle 48" and "First 48" would also be accurate. But we can't really expect journalists to be able to read a map, can we?

I don't agree with the contention that economic divisions are greater than cultural divisions.

The axis are not equal, which skews one's perception of the information.

A better representation would be a plot of paired differences for each state. For example Massachusetts might get mapped to (MA(rep econ) - MA(dem econ), MA(rep social)-MA(dem social)), in this example about (.4,.35). The would be a better representation of the data.

So Idaho comes closest to having its entire head up its ass?

Two words: Larry Craig.

I object to "liberal views" being assigned negative numbers and "conservative views" with positive numbers.
It should be reversed!
Posted by: optical weenie

Why is that, when you're not a liberal?

Weenie, seriously though.

You know that lower values are always on the left side of the graph. And you do want to be on the left side of the graph, don't you?

Whocouldanode that Oregon was a neighbor to MA, DE, NY, and RI?

OR is blue, green (in the west) and progressive!

Jim,

Oregon's apparently a 50-50 mix of Montana and Massachusetts. I thought it was more complex than that and had at least 25% California :)

Eyeballing the chart suggests those with closer social/economic alignment, and especially those in the lower-left and center, tend to do better on a per-capita GDP basis. A more rigorous analysis would be interesting.

BTW -- Oregon has pretty vocal (and fairly successful) property rights and anti-tax groups.

Are they more noticeable because they're vocal? Maybe these plots are plotting the wrong thing.

I think this graph really shows the extent to which Virginia and Nevada have become swing states.

Try a mental correlation with income and draw your own conclusions.

Maybe I should stick a crayola up my dog's ass and have him drag his ass across the white tile floor in my kitchen and we can use that to interpret how liberal each state in the US of A is.

That exercise would be about as meaningful as this one.

I notice that the Southern slave states plus Idaho (Mormon and rural) and South Dakota (why? rural?) make up the most solidly conservative states.

The Southern slave-masters/aristocratic plantation owners are still working hard to control the United States. Their jobs are different today, but the Southern aristocratic class still runs things there. Read the Rise of American Democracy by Sean Willentz. That was what they were doing between 1820 and 1860.

The states in the lower left quadrant tend to be the most urban. Probably also the most educated.

That's an eyeball estimate, of course, but I'm sure that it isn't far off using more precise statistics.

Well I clicked the link, and then followed through to Red state, Blue State, their book, and, unless I missed soemthing never did find an explanation of how they value liberal and conservative so it all seems pretty meaningless and undefined. And, yes, they could have had a less prejudicial value like 0.1L or 0.2R and avoided the obvious subliminal putdown.

Given that US society runs so far to the right of the rest of the OECD I think their methodology needs to be expressed.

As for SD, they have as substantial a Native American population as any state except NM, and I think that makes it a semi-Southern state. The reservations are hellholes and white attitudes are pretty savage.

I wouldn't be surprised if WV and Kentucky were the most heavily unionized states in the country.

Hawaii is the most, followed by New York, Alaska, and New Jersey. KY and WV appear to straddle the first and second (upper) quartile.

"This is, to me, the natural way to do it because positive numbers are to the right on the number line and negative numbers are to the left."

Andrew, you are speaking about numbers like a mathematician - without acknowledging the inherent biases people bring to the table when they interpret a chart (or anything else). You clearly don't associate negative feelings with the idea of a negative number and that is completely rational. The problem is that people are often not even remotely rational. There is no reason the scale can't be based on absolute values away from some neutral expectation.

There is also no rational reason that liberals must always be on the left and conservatives on the right - these are simply conventions. Building good charts - especially when they convey loaded political data - requires careful thinking about the different ways that people might interpret their meaning. While it is true that you can't make every possible exception for every silly bias that people might have, it seems like a no-brainer to simply eliminate the idea of negative values on a chart meant to portray ideologies.

Poor (in every sense) LA. our only consolation is, 'But look at Mississippi!'

(sigh)

If McCain wants our new wacko gov, I say, 'Welcome to him.'

“The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance� - Thomas Jefferson

With the exception of Idaho and Utah, the Rocky Mountain states are in the NW quadrant of the graph. Of course they are!! Study after study shows that they're the beneficiaries of a net positive flow of federal dollars, siphoned off from the taxes paid by the heathens of the coasts.

Don't forget that the chart talks about the electorate and not the people who really control each party. The Bush family is from Connecticut and Maine with long-time connections to Washington, not Texas.

Money rules and don't you forget it!

Of note here is that you could almost--not quite, but almost--line the states up, left to right, simply by lining them up, richer to poorer. Since it's pretty much a given (and demonstrated) that being richer does not make people more liberal, we have to conclude that being liberal makes states richer.

Typo note: Isn't it Gelman with one l? Confer Andy's post above.