Interesting that the info at the links disagrees. Are both that point to richer voters favoring Democrats the same recent election? I think they are. And I wonder if it has more to do with a lot of anti-incumbent fervor the last time around.

Yeah, I don't necessarily think it is a Democrat/Republican thing. The Conservinator grew up very blue collar and I definitely did not. Both of us just find it refreshing to see a candidate "like us" who had to deal with being 40 and still paying for education because most recent politicians on either side of the aisle seem to have not had that issue.

He didn't take the six-figure jobs, but his wife did.

As someone who has A LOT of grad school loans, I can't say that someone's student debt burden makes them a more attractive candidate, or even that they understand "reality." A lot of people stretch out their loans as long as possible, because of the low interest rates. By not trying to pay off their loans quickly, they're able to have a lot of cash on hand to do things like buy a house or just to have additional spending money. A close family member is a physician. She makes enough money to own a waterfront home, several boats, and travel throughout the world, but she's paying less on her loans than I am--and she probably makes at least 5 times what I do.

Of course, this is just antecdotal evidence, but again...student debt doesn't seem like a political issue to me.

I would think it would be impossible to get accurate data because many states do not require people to register by party. It would be completely self-reported, and well, I don't really trust self-reported data at all. Kinda like relying on exit polls.

At your service, ma'am. :)

The following came up in two different letters to the editor published in the local paper today:

"Sarah Palin and her narrow-minded supporters, when disparaging Sen. Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer, should remember this: Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor."

Ooooh, burn.

True - plus, if you really want to go back, as in "What was the income level of your household growing up?" it gets even tougher to peg.

And THAT can vary greatly. From first grade to 12th grade, my dad moved up pretty well, so in first grade our family income was pretty low, by 12th grade my dad was making a lot of money PLUS my mom had gone back to college and was working. Perhaps because of all the unions up here, I had always thought of it more as a blue collar(dems) vs. white collar(reps) thing. That one doesn't seem very accurate anymore either.

An interesting point that this article makes is that in blue states, income tends not to be an accurate predictor of which way people vote -- but in red states, it is, and the rich tend to lean Republican. So if you grew up in the northeast, you might not notice much of a correlation, but your experience would be quite different in Texas or Georgia.

That's a fair enough point - I could cite as many stats as I want, but when it comes down to it my opinions are going to be influenced by my experience up here in New England.

Holy God. The dude went to Harvard Law - just because he's not retarded and realized that Federal student loans mature at a rate slower than inflation (thus, you make money via the time-value) doesn't mean that he's Joe Sixpack. This continues to blow my mind every time I hear it.

Well, consider it blown. I'm glad I could do that service for you. He still had to take out loans which is more than I can say for most of the politicians lately. I'm sure that I'd vote for him over McCain even if he'd had his daddy pay for college.

The average annual return on the S&P is 10%, Federal Stafford Loans have around a 6% interest rate. It's smart to pay for school with federal loans and not pay them off early if your other alternative is spending money you would otherwise be investing.

I read that article too, and in some of the "red" states, it's been my experience that race, and not income, informs political leaning. Think about Mississippi. It's one of the poorest states, yet it still delivered 60% of its votes to Bush in 2004. Roughly 65% of its population, however, is white; since we all know that African-Americans are the most reliable Democratic voters, it's safe to surmise that a good chunk of those who voted for Kerry are black. Are the wealthiest Mississippians (many of whom aren't wealthy by Coastal Californian/NYC/Boston/DC/Chicago standards) going GOP? Probably, but there are still a ton of poor people, most likely white, voting Republican there.

I'm probably just shooting from the hip here at this point, but race probably has a stronger correlation with income AND political stance in the "red" states than it does on either coast, which indicates why "poorer" whites are voting Republican there.