Strictly for polijunkies and degenerate philosophers: There is a piece over at The American Conservative that makes for really good reading thinking (that awful word). The innocent sounding title is Value Voters, but the content is hardly that. This article suggests that we look at voters and voting patterns in a completely different way, and he has the math and research to back up what he says. Voters are broken down by marriage, number of kids, cost of mortgages, etc. and once you get all this info you will know how most vote. It's new thinking and worth reading. His main conclusion is that when people marry older they have fewer children and choose to live in cities where mortgages require incomes of 200K + so naturally the woman works. They view the world completely apart from the person living in a smaller city where mortgages are often 30% of those in the cities. This cheap housing results in larger families, stay at home moms, and completely different POVs and life styles. This "extra room" gives them that "red state" feeling. He concludes that the size of mortgages determine both our politics and our life styles. Terrific read and very hard to challenge his conclusions.