Where I live

A tally of the most liberal, and most conservative states in the U.S.

Liberal;
1 Detroit Michigan
2 Gary Indiana
3 Berkeley California
4 Washington, D.C. Dist. of Columbia
5 Oakland California
6 Inglewood California
7 Newark New Jersey
8 Cambridge Massachusetts
9 San Francisco California
10 Flint Michigan
11 Cleveland Ohio
12 Hartford Connecticut
13 Paterson New Jersey
14 Baltimore Maryland
15 New Haven Connecticut
16 Seattle Washington
17 Chicago Illinois
18 Philadelphia Pennsylvania
19 Birmingham Alabama
20 St. Louis Missouri
21 New York New York
22 Providence Rhode Island
23 Minneapolis Minnesota
24 Boston Massachusetts
25 Buffalo New York

I'm totally surprised an Indiana town is the #2 most liberal city in America. That's just amazing. I'm also surprised to see Cleveland ahead of Seattle.

However, the labels "liberal" and "conservative" can mean different things in different contexts. A city like Seattle may be very socially liberal, but because there is a lot of wealth, there are a large number of economic conservatives dragging down their liberal rating. Those economic conservatives may be very socially liberal however.

Conservative;
1 Provo Utah
2 Lubbock Texas
3 Abilene Texas
4 Hialeah Florida
5 Plano Texas
6 Colorado Springs Colorado
7 Gilbert Arizona
8 Bakersfield California
9 Lafayette Louisiana
10 Orange California
11 Escondido California
12 Allentown Pennsylvania
13 Mesa Arizona
14 Arlington Texas
15 Peoria Arizona
16 Cape Coral Florida
17 Garden Grove California
18 Simi Valley California
19 Corona California
20 Clearwater Florida
21 West Valley City Utah
22 Oklahoma City Oklahoma
23 Overland Park Kansas
24 Anchorage Alaska
25 Huntington Beach California

Guess where I live? LOL

Actually.. when I moved to Texas I lived in Plano, but bought my house in Frisco, which is about 8 miles north east of where I lived in Plano, so it's all the same thing.

There are some nice things about Plano, as it's described by Micky Kaus (who is a moron btw, but that's not relevant to my point here).

Plano, Texas is part of Collin County, Texas. It is genuinely affluent, with a median income of over $75000. In 2004, Collin County gave 71.2% of its vote to George W. Bush, and 28.1% to John Kerry, a percentage that exceeded Bush's margin in Texas as a whole. In other words, Collin County is conservative for Texas.

Plano/Frisco is a very tech heavy area, with both E.D.S., and Perot Systems headquartered here, as well as various other tech companies, like McAfee. Having no state income tax is a big draw to this area.

So, apparently both Brokeback Mountain and Al Gore's movie, An Inconvieniant Truth, did well in ticket sales, leading one to believe that Plano/Frisco is socially liberal. So "liberal", that in fact Walmart wanted to do a test.

The Plano Con, Coda: Remember Plano, Texas, the Mid-American city where Brokeback Mountain's ticket sales so impressed Frank Rich and others with the film's hard-core red-state appeal? When Wal-Mart decided to open a new experimental "upscale" store, featuring a sushi bar, an espresso bar, $500 bottles of wine--but no guns--guess where they decided to do it? ... Reports A.P.: "[I]f plasma TVs, microbrewery beer and fancy balsamic vinegar sell in Plano, those items could be added to stores in other affluent communities." ... Plano is in fact an affluent Dallas suburb.

Because Kaus thinks that micro-brews and plasma TVs are really gay or something, that makes Plano socially liberal? I don't know, it's very odd.

Then again, the first thing I noticed when I moved to Plano was this huge stadium near where my apartment was located. I thought it was a minor league baseball stadium or something. Turns out it's a 75,000 seat bat shit crazy Jayzus wonderland.

So, as political pundits try and figure out what the viewing and shopping habits of "upscale red state suburbanites" mean, I'd like to just point out that it means Plano/Frisco is simply very confused. It doesn't know what it's supposed to think, because it's a mass of contradictions. There are a lot of really smart, young, engineers and other geeky types.. and they are overwhelmingly liberal. But, there are a lot of affluent people here as well, and they are overwhelmingly fiscally conservative (they just hate paying taxes is all), but may be socially liberal, hence Brokeback doing well. But, at the end of the day, it's still Jebus land, with a church on every corner and the seathing hatred that comes with it underlines everything else in the city.

And one point of fact that should settle the debate for these pundits that are going at each other over the nature of Plano Texas; there are no gay bars here. Not a single one, even though there is a very large gay/lesbian community. That tells you all you need to know. Yes, there may be some people here who are "open minded" (another way of saying liberal) because it's quasi-chic to be gay friendly, but when you get to the very pit of these people, they're haters and will not allow any sort of social justice to disturb the very white, very affluent peace. Ya.. we have some black people living here, and the neighbor to my right is a black family.. but boy, they sure as hell better act just like every other white family, and make a really good living.

So, the basic sense that I get from living here is that it is indeed, conservative hell. I like the upscale part of it, and the nice retail, and I can get any damn thing I want within a couple miles of my house - except a social setting I'm comfortable in... and in the end, even though people act nice to me, I know they really wish I were not here.. and I agree.. wish I weren't here as well, but god damn.. the value of my house went up almost 30 grand in 2 years, and I make a lot of money.

One of the things that sucks about traveling to really awesome cities, is that you have to come home and know you're surrounded by really crazy people.