Which state is the most conservative in the country?

[IrishEyes]

I'm looking for opinions. Which is the worst state for a liberal democrat to live in? I'm looking for the most conservative state with the most screwed up government, politicians and laws. Thanks.

[LiberalLoner]

1. Well, I lived in the panhandle of Florida once many years ago and I recall

I had to really hide my "blueness" in order not to get beaten up. But maybe it's better these days.

[FLPanhandle]

18. No danger of being beaten up here

But it's still dark red and part of the bible belt.

One good thing with the panhandle is the high concentration of defense industries here. Lots of engineers, scientists, computer techs, etc. They are conservative but not stupid hicks.

Of course, there are times I feel like the lone environmentalist, liberal, atheist in town.

[Kurmudgeon]

2. Most conservative? West Virginia, though not a bad place to live.

People tend to leave you alone here, which is more than I can say for a lot of places.
Most screwed up government? Good question....

[marions ghost]

51. SC is worse than WV

anyday

[jpak]

56. Yup - they loves them some Confederacy - Old Times There is Not Forgotten

yup

[ThomWV]

57. I've lived most of my life in those two states and I have to agree - SC hands down.

Here at least there is still lip-service given to the working man and Unions.

[tabasco]

74. Totally false. n/t

[Kurmudgeon]

78. Haven't spent much time in WV, I see.

I still see Dubya stickers on windows here, and of course, McCain/Failin ones quite often.
I'll spare you the Obama references, not something I'd want to put in print here or elsewhere.

[tabasco]

79. I live in West Virginia.

I have also lived several other places, which gives me a frame of reference.

You should do some traveling. WV is FAR from the most conservative state.

[Vincardog]

3. TX from my experience

[polichick]

4. Well, I'd never live in Texas or South Carolina - spent plenty of time in both...

Though I enjoy the beaches in SC and the bluebonnets in TX.

[PBS Poll-435]

14. For ya, PC

[polichick]

16. So beautiful - thank you!!!

[Arugula Latte]

5. Utah would have to be up there. The LDS Church has their fingers in every pot.

Not much gets done in that state without Mormon intervention/involvement.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

6. From my personal view,

it's Oklahoma. I know they have some Democrats in their state gov, but to me it just feels ultra conservative and fundamentalist. The deep South is bad too but the black people there are relatively liberal so it balances out a little. West Virginia is pretty conservative, especially socially, but many up there have a good sense that the corporations are not their friends so they tend to be pro-union. Utah is another candidate but I didn't notice quite as much bigotry there as I did in Oklahoma.

[snooper2]

7. IMO the worst state for anybody to live in is Missouri

Unfortunately I have to go to Maryland Heights for a vendor meeting next month...

:puke:


You can catch some big ass catfish in the Missouri river, just don't eat them :P

[PBS Poll-435]

8. Wyoming

At least SLC had a Democratic Mayor and Idaho had Walt Minnick for a term as ID-AL.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

12. But

people in Wyoming aren't really the "in your face" types of conservatives that the South and parts of the Midwest have. I'll have to dig it up, but I believe a poll showed that many in Wyoming attend no church and are pro-choice. I'll try and find it.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Maybe a bit more of a libertarian bent than other conservative states?

Also, Wyoming Territory allowed women to vote well before it was legal nationally.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

30. Yeah,

I think some states in the West such as Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Nevada tend to be libertarian. I used to include Arizona in that category but I'm not so sure anymore considering the batshit craziness that has come from that state recently. And New Mexico is the definition of a moderate state.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

29. Here are some things i found.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/22579/church-attendance-lowestnew-england-highest-south.aspx

http://www.surveyusa.com/50State2005/50StateAbortion0805SortedbyProLife.htm


The polls are a few years old, but I don't believe much has changed since then.

[defendandprotect]

35. Would also note re "church" that Hispanics are often very LIBERAL Catholics ...

a tradition which the RCC has tried to stamp out!!

[Celeborn Skywalker]

37. Yes that's true.

I live here in NM and I would classify the average Hispanic Catholic in my state as moderate-liberal overall. They tend to be very pro-labor, relatively pro-choice, and pro-gay rights (even as some older Hispanics don't feel comfortable around them personally). On the more conservative side of things, many tend to be very pro-gun, kinda ant-hippie/environmentalist, and pro-death penalty.

These are just my personal observations having come from living here my whole 27 years of life.
Naturally, these are generalizations and aren't meant to group every Hispanic in the state as having the exact same political beliefs. :)

[defendandprotect]

40. I was surprised myself ...

because of the church connections -- but a tthe time of the health care

discussions it turned out that while Americans supported single-payer/

government run health care by 74%+ -- Catholics by 73% --

Latinos/Latinas Catholics supported it by 83% -- !!

They are way higher on reproductive health care than the average Catholic as well --

on what would be included in government or private health care --

Pre/Post Natal Care 97% - Aids testing 92% - Contraception 67% - Condoms to Prevent

HIV/Aids 57% - and on abortion --

pregnancy that threatens life of woman 87%
pregnancy that results from rape incest 80%
pregnancy that poses long term health risks to woman 77%
pregnancy where fetus has severe abnormal condition 71%

And re simply CHOICE abortion -- i.e., when a woman and doctor decide appropriate -- 53%


:)

Overall I do know that Catholic women of every nationality have just as many abortions

as any other women -- therefore, the effort made by officials of the RCC to influence

government to destroy rights and access to abortion and birth control are done primarily

in the interests of the hiearchy of the church.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I nominate Oklahoma.

[moondust]

48. +1

Only state without a single blue county in the last two Presidential elections.

[kentuck]

10. In my opinion....

It would be SC, AL, MS, and OK. Huge parts of FL, TX, TN, KY, and IN.

[SOS]

23. Biggest margin for McCain/Failin' was OK

Oklahoma was most right-wing state in 2008 based on returns.

[white_wolf]

11. Tennessee is pretty bad.

We just passed a bill where teachers can't say the word gay or talk about homosexuality at all. Oh, and we are also debating a bill to let students and teachers carry guns to school on university campuses. Oh, and we have no income tax.

[w8liftinglady]

13. pretty much anyplace but Austin in Texas

Especially avoid Ellis and Midland Counties...
well,here's a good map

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-map#s=TX

[ScreamingMeemie]

36. Actually Houston is pretty awesome.

I'd take where I live, the people I know, over Austin any day. :hi:

[indy legend]

15. Indiana. This place is a living GOP hell that's why I'm moving my family to Vancouver next month

And watch out. We have this piece of shit governor Mitch Daniels who secretly really wants to be President / Er King. Be afraid, be very afraid. It will be chapter two of GW Bush's fuck up a state first then fuck up a country. Trust me, we can never let this son-of-a-bitch ever hold the White House.

[kas125]

45. I just got a text from my little sister who is the caregiver of

a disabled child. She and the little girl's mother just had an argument with Daniels. She said he was obviously pissed off when they left. I can't wait to hear the details!

I hope your new life will be better, but I can't help wondering how Indiana can ever get better if all the good people move away.

[indy legend]

61. We didn't plan on moving away until a couple of years ago, but we have been fighting this

battle against this conservative cancer for a long time. It was my hope that we would stay here the rest of our lives and our girls would go to our alma mater, Butler University, but we began to look for places a little more progressive friendly and we loved the pacific northwest. We were looking at SF/Portland / Seattle as options. I am retiring in a few weeks and my wife worked at Butler. While on vacation to Vancouver a couple of years ago we just fell in love with the area. My wife was recently offered a similar position at Simon Fraser University and my two oldest girls loved the university too so it became an easy decision. WE just felt this opportunity came along for a reason. We are even hated by our own family because we are liberals and living in the suburbs of Indy are treated terribly as we are a mixed family. I am white, my wife is African-American and it is just a situation that has become unbearable. Indy has always been our home but we just don't feel like fighting this any more and we felt this was best for our girls. I too can understand your frustration. While my two oldest are getting ready for College next year my youngest is 13, autistic and has cerebral palsy. I can only imagine the future these right wing bastards have in store for her.

[kas125]

68. It sounds like it'll be great for all of you, then. I live in the

blue corner of the state, 30 miles from Chicago so it's not quite as bad here. At least not as far as conservatives. There are some, but they're greatly outnumbered. I'm white, too, and my nephew is married to a girl who is African-American. Here, that's pretty common and I don't think they've had any problems from anyone.

One of my sisters lives in Noblesville, she's the one who argued with Daniels today and she tells me how horrible things are down there. And one of my fellow codepink members lives there, too. I can't really blame you for wanting to leave this state, especially since you have a child with disabilities. What they're proposing is unconscionable! My sister worked for twelve years at a school for disabled kids - this year the school was closed. When she told Daniels that today, he insisted it was for lack of enrollment. She said that when she told him, no, they had full enrollment and a long waiting list, he became visibly angry. They don't like it when we confront them with facts.

Take your girls and get as far away from this place as you can! I hope you all have a wonderful future and wish you all the best!

[indy legend]

82. Thank You. I know all about Noblesville.

I live in Fishers, near there. We moved there because it was a "better" neighborhood with a nice home "better" schools and with "better" opportunities for our girls. It has been seven years of hell surrounded by racist (some are even family) and right wing crazies (also some family). I have never seen so many selfish, racist, and greedy people who Have theirs, too hell with anyone else. Where do these bastards come from? We have ours too but we are damned lucky, damned happy for it and damned sure we owe something back to those less fortunate. Thank you for the well wishes. Keep fighting before this cancer spreads to the Region up there. Good luck.

[Shandris]

54. Amen to that, IL.

That bastard has given me bad heebie-jeebies since the first time I saw his 'bus' pass by. There's something about him I JUST don't trust, and his policies? My God. His approach to handling the social programs in IN is just perfectly in line with what the 'thugs in Washington want, also. You'd almost think they were reading from a book or something. (And I have no doubt...they are.)

Sorry to hear you're leaving us. I'll hold down the fort in case you decide to return. ;)

[Gemini Cat]

58. Agree.

Oh, and watch Mike Pence become governor. That will be lots of fun teabagging hell.

[indy legend]

65. That is scary. Mike Pence is an evil, dangerous Son-of-a-bitch.

[IDemo]

17. Ahem

You're all pretenders, guys. Try living here (Idaho) for a few decades.

[Vanje]

43. Word!

Howdy Neighbor. What part of the reddest red state are you from?
'm an Owyhee County Homie from Homedale.

[IDemo]

47. Over here in Boise

One of the occasionally purple areas, along with Blaine County, Moscow, Pocatello, and Coeur d'Alene. Missing the days of Frank Church and Cece Andrus.

:hi:

[RT Atlanta]

19. I'll nominate a few...

all of which I have lived in:

Georgia

South Carolina

Alabama

[LeftinOH]

20. I haven't been there- but isn't it Utah?

[dmosh42]

21. Usually the dumbest, easily led states. n/t

[ParkieDem]

24. It depends on what type of conservatism you're talking about.

If it's wacked-out, ultra right-wing religious evangelical conservatism, I'd say you'd have to go with some place like South Carolina or Mississippi. Those states, as a whole, are just plain crazy. Oklahoma can be thrown in there, too.

If it's leave-me-alone conservatism of the more libertarian bent, I'd say some place out west -- Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho come to mind. Those states typically vote upwards of 70% for the Republican candidate in presidential elections.

If it's "corporatist" conservative, take your pick. Texas, maybe? But Texas is still a big, diverse state, so it's hard to characterize us in this consideration, IMHO. Tennessee? Georgia?

[Carnage251]

25. Mississippi Rates as the Most Conservative State

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146348/mississippi-rates-conservative-state.aspx

I am trying to get the hell out of #3 Alabama

[Aerows]

28. I'm with you

I live in Mississippi. It sucks being a liberal here.

[white_wolf]

32. Wow. TN isn't even in the top 10.

I don't even want to think about how bad those states are.

[brendan120678]

44. Is Alabama really that bad?

I haven't spent lots of time there...but I do go there a few times a year for business.
I am usually only in and around the Huntsville area, so maybe that may be the difference.

[Elwood P Dowd]

55. Huntsville is an exception. People from all over the country live and work there.

Same for places like Auburn and Tuscaloosa, as they have large universities and international companies located there.

[Carnage251]

70. Yes

I still see W the president stickers and confederate battle flags. Conservatives fill every statewide elected office now that Barack Obama is President. These "freedom loving" idiots rejected a statewide education lottery and are fighting to keep electronic bingo illegal. They also oppose removing the racist parts from our constitution that is 40 times larger than the U.S. constitution. To sum it all up they are just ill informed faux news watchers.

[bullwinkle428]

46. Jackson, MS is the most racist place I've ever personally visited

in the U.S., and I've been in just about every state east of the Mississippi River and several west of it.

Just based on my own personal experience...your mileage may vary.

[EstimatedProphet]

52. Went to grad school there. I'll vouch for it

My introduction to Mississippi came in 1991 when we started Desert Storm. One Sunday there was a TV preacher from Belzoni MS who came out in a powder blue tux and stood in front of a big flag, and his sermon was about how all them dam lieburuls who don't want to kill every dam cameljockey in Eyrak is all jus traiters 'n shit.

Seriously. I wish I were kidding.

[Blue_In_AK]

63. That looks about right.

I haven't lived in any of those other states for a long time, but I think Alaska's about "average" as this poll says.

[SoCalDem]

26. Too many contenders.

the sad thing is that in EVERY hyper-conservative state, there are also many die-hard liberals. They are not in enough numbers to change things, but they do keep trying..

It's too bad that more liberals cannot target states that are close to "tipping"
and help them over the hump:)

[Aerows]

27. Mississippi

It has to rank up there as the most horrible place for a liberal to live. I know, I live here.

[Azathoth]

31. Almost 75% of Utah voted for Shrub in 2004.

Take from that what you will.

[RebelOne]

33. Where I live -- Georgia.

There are hardly any Democrats holding office. And the county I live in is as red as it could get. No Democrats in the county office.

[dawg]

50. Had a chick in a luxury car shoot me the double-bird last time I was up your way.

The wingnuttery and assholery seem to go hand-in-hand.

(Unless that was you, of course, in which case ..... sorry for cutting you off like that! :hi:)

[RebelOne]

69. Nope it wasn't me. I don't shoot birds.

And unfortunately, I don't drive a luxury car, just a Ford Taurus. If you are up my way again, look for the Democratic Underground bumper sticker on the back of a silver Ford Taurus. I live in Woodstock.

[Donnachaidh]

75. gotta agree wholeheartedly.

This county is so bad it's frightening. When my kid said he was Buddhist (during a literature class discussion that devolved into a Bible session) you would have thought he'd just stepped off a flying saucer.

[defendandprotect]

34. Would be interesting to hear what the influences are -- church/MIC/racism .....not just states!!

:) interesting thead !!

[HopeHoops]

38. New Hampshire

[cordelia]

39. Missouri.

Kansas City. Wonderful people.

Also lived in FL, UT, and now GA.

[damntexdem]

41. So many choices, so little time ... one can stand to live there.

;-)

I'm tempted to say Oklahoma, but still there's so much competition.

[Vanje]

42. Idaho

When GW Bush ratings were at their lowest throughout the country, they were higher in Idaho than any other state.
Idaho loved GWB more than Texas, More than Mississippi, More than Alabama.......SC , WV , even more than Utah.

[JackRiddler]

49. New York.

Okay, I'm an attention whore. But I've got three arguments:

.(I).

If you define "conservative" by a traditional dictionary, as a political philosophy under which change should always be slow and institutional, then New York has been less radical in dismantling the real American status quo (which was the New Deal) than Texas. (Of course, not even in the time of Burke and the French Revolution was conservatism really what it claimed; it's always been about hysterical reactions to new ideas and perceived lower-class or foreign threats to upper-class privileges.)

.(II).

On the other hand, if we go by the dystopia of FOXNEWS and the modern Republican stormtroopers, then "conservative" is simply a straight-up, blind, flag-waving, God-invoking allegiance to hierarchical authoritarian statism (minus the justice and welfare components).

In that case, this state's great and fabulous City has been the premiere testing ground for most of the cutting-edge strategies of control over every aspect of life in the Homeland. The centralized top-down technologies and systems for surveillance, crowd control, COINTEL, propaganda, and behavioral modification as implemented here end up most everywhere else in the country. Remember, this is the City of Koch, Giuliani and Bloomberg -- all pathbreakers in police statism.

This is also the adopted city of the Koch Brothers, of the Manhattan and Hudson institutes, as well as the aforementioned FOXNEWS/NewsCorp and the rest of the right-wing "liberal" media, very much an intellectual nerve center for reaction, even though the people generally aren't like that.

.(III).

Finally, we could also argue that "conservative" is whatever the biggest pile of money says it is, and that it is most powerful where the money is most in charge. Well then, case closed, no?

.(WELL, OK).

All of the above in the name of food for thought, things are always complicated, etc. New York is of course not the most "conservative" place as conventionally defined, and in conventional political terms the city alone provided something like a two-million vote margin for Gore over Bush in 2000.

Thank god for this city's general sense of tolerance for difference and oft-expressed creativity!

.

[ipfilter]

53. Here in Oklahoma I can count on

7 out of 10 people being extreme wing nuts. Republicans routinely win national elections by a margin close to 70%.

[DCKit]

59. You're using THEIR definition of conservative, and they're all batshit crazy radicals.

"Most Conservative" are the states that never make the news.

[blondeatlast]

60. Arizona. nt

[Travelman]

62. While I wouldn't necessarily say it's the worst place to live

for a liberal Democrat, Mississippi is widely considered to be the most conservative out of 50 states. It is not devoid of liberalism, however: there's Millsaps College, there's Oxford (town where Ole Miss is located, and surprisingly liberal for smack in the middle of Mississippi). And, there's a few names you may have heard of from Mississippi that are at least Left-leaning: Oprah Winfrey, William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Ellen Gilchrist, Jimmy Buffett.

So clearly it's not impossible to live as a liberal in Mississippi.

[TransitJohn]

64. My state of Wyoming, no contest.

Look at the legislature.

[demtenjeep]

66. Kansas

all repuke all the time


proud state of an assassin

[demtenjeep]

67. oh and we get the koch brothers too

so we win

(LOSE)

[spanone]

71. tennessee is doing all it can to reach the number one spot

[IrishEyes]

72. Thank you all for answering my question.

I will have to consider your answers.

[Vanje]

73. Thank YOU

for a great thread.

[Taverner]

76. I wouldn't be surprised if California is both the most Conservative and Liberal in the country

California's weird that way

[Umbral]

77. Utah is the most uniformly conservative, but Arizona has the most wingnut crazy fucks per capita. nt

[Terra Alta]

80. South Carolina.

I was born there, and still have family there. It's the reddest of red states.

Alabama and Mississippi are very redneck/conservative as well.

And Oklahoma, where every single county voted overwhelmingly for McCain/Caribou Barbie in 2008, is a hotbed of conservatism.

[TheKentuckian]

81. I'm not sure but my nominees are Mississippi, Oklahoma, S. Carolina, Utah, and Alabama

[krispos42]

83. The one that has simultaniously the highest infant-mortality rate and...

...the most restrictions on legal abortions.

[Zorra]

84. Ever been to North Dakota? O. M. G. Gets my vote. nt