The Lefty Berkshires

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Thursday, January 21. 2010

I cannot explain why this is, but it's been like this for quite a while. Maybe some readers can splain it to me:

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 15:11 | Comments (33) | Trackbacks (0)

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I wondered about that too. Michael Barone referred to them as trustfunders, but they can't all be trustfunders.

#1 chuck on 2010-01-21 15:24 (Reply)

Vermont lite. A lot of Noo Yawkuz have vacation homes there and have moved there. That blue area east of the Berkshires also includes the Pioneer Valley, which includes the five college area of UMass Amherst, Smith, & Mt. Holyoke. Another example: Lenox has the Tanglewood Music Festival, which will give it a college tinge. Great place for music.

#2 Gringo on 2010-01-21 15:41 (Reply)

Also Hampshire College.

#2.1 Gringo on 2010-01-21 15:44 (Reply)

All the above is not enough to account for the blue.

#3 Bird Dog on 2010-01-21 15:46 (Reply)

Both Vermont and New Hampshire were rock-ribbed Rethuglican states until Noo Yawkuz moved into Vermont and refugees from Taxachusettes moved into New Hampshire, a.k.a. Cow Hampshire by some residents of the Commonwealth.

#3.1 Gringo on 2010-01-21 15:50 (Reply)

As evidence of the NooYawk influence in the Berkshires, here is a discourse on Yankees fans in the Berkshires

As a fan of baseball I would only hope that the Eagle could see fit to give the Yankees the coverage they deserve. This area has many Yankee fans and would like the local paper to cover their team. After all we all are paying customers of the Eagle. I seem to remember a poll that was taken sometime ago. The results of the poll were that the Berkshires had about 60% Red Sox fans and 40% Yankee fans. The bottom line is that 40% of the readers are Yankee fans so start acknowledging that fact by providing fair press coverage.

Some of the relatively large amount of Yankees fans in the Berkshires could be attributed to the fact that NYC is almost equidistant from Boston. However, if you apply that argument to Fairfield Cty in CT, you see that there are also a lot of New Yorkers in Fairfield Cty. Fairfield Cty also went for Lamont instead of Lieberman.

#3.2 Gringo on 2010-01-21 16:15 (Reply)

Isn't that Arlo Guthrie territory?
I mean the Berkshires and the Western part of Massachusetts was a haven for ex-hippies and dropouts, as far back as I can remember.

My aunt and uncle lived there for a while, near all their old commune buddies.

I'm not a native of the area, but I've driven through and stopped in a few of the towns. Each has a distinct liberal feel to it. Artsy, laid back, lots of tie-dye, very green, etc. I don't know - just my feeling.

In fact, I do know someone who lives up there now and she is VERY LIBERAL and loves the "relaxed, caring feelings" of the region.

Whenever I hear people talk about feelings from a societal standpoint, my liberal antennae go up.

I always point out - it ain't about feeling, it's about doing. You can always feel bad for someone, you can always care for someone. But if you don't do something for them, or haven't done enough for yourself to have the capacity to do something for them.......then what good are the feelings? Except to make you feel good about yourself for having feelings.

#3.3 Rick on 2010-01-21 21:18 (Reply)

I'd like to know why we accept blue (true blue) for Democrats and red (communist red) for Republicans.

We have allowed the Democrats to frame the arguments and define the words used and as usual, they have twisted everything to mean its opposite

#4 bruce wayne on 2010-01-21 16:05 (Reply)

I noticed that as well and commented on it on another blog. I've always thought of the western part of the state as old-school Republican (what they used to call Rockefeller Republicans, before the Southern Strategy brought in all the religious conservatives).

I think it must be a combination of a few things. The far western edge has a lot of nominal Bay Staters who work in Albany and other places in New York but live in Mass. Most all these towns are very small, so a few "blues" added to them will change the majority color. I think it's also retiring hippie-generation folks from both New York and the Boston area moving to the country to live off their pensions -- again, only a handful need to be added to any town to switch it from red to blue. That plus a few naturally blue bubbles around the colleges may explain it.

#5 reader on 2010-01-21 16:38 (Reply)

I live in the Berkshires, and let me tell you it is dangerous to your well being to be open about conservativism. Your car will get keyed, you will get hate mail, your kids will be harassed and you might as well be called a niger guilty of the crime of defending free speech and free markets.

Pick up the Berkshire Earle sometime and read the editorials. There is media bias and then there is the outright promotion of socialistic ideals. One must get different opinions elsewhere and I suspect one of the reasons Brown won was because he was able to end-run the media.

Most in the Berkshires are not technically savy and have to work two, three jobs to make ends meet. Nor is their much broadband for the masses in the area so they have to rely on what they get spoon feed by the activists and media.

#6 BerkshireConservative on 2010-01-21 17:06 (Reply)

Something in the water?

#7 Knucklehead (Link) on 2010-01-21 17:25 (Reply)

Closer to california?

#8 thud (Link) on 2010-01-21 17:32 (Reply)

Bruce Wayne: I've often asked the same question. My recollection is that the TV electoral map colors did a flip flop back in the '80's.

I remember well that the GOP started out as blue on the election night maps, the Dems red. Intuitively, Tory Blue and Labour Red, as the colors are used in the U.K.

Sometime during the '80's, the dominant liberal media of the day was able to pull off the flip flop, no doubt due to pressure from Dems who did not want to be tagged with the commie colors. Or, am I just another right wing conspiracy nut?

Any students of the media out there who can confirm or refute my allegation?

#9 greenmtnpunter on 2010-01-21 18:10 (Reply)

I thought it was during the 2000 election when they(the MSM) pulled this off. I recall that some pollster did a map of voters and it took off from there.

#9.1 grant1863 on 2010-01-21 18:26 (Reply)

OT, but... with only 106,177 votes difference you'd think a recount would be in order. I am sure they can find the votes if they count enough times.

Sad part is, someone probably already calculated doing that exact thing.

#10 Phil on 2010-01-21 18:14 (Reply)

In two words - Arlo Guthrie.

You folks ain't as old as me mebbe? Y'don't remember the '60s, when every third New York/Boston long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smokin' back-to-the-lander moved to the Berkshires? I do. I was one of 'em, although I didn't fit the mold in that I voted for Nixon. T'other 2/3 all wanted to, but didn't have the scratch, so they just came out on weekends and smoked up all our dope. What you see today is the residue of that migration.

Me, I quit the state in 1977 and never went back. Won't, either, unless they repeal all that gun-registration nonsense.

#11 Merlin80 on 2010-01-21 18:35 (Reply)

Arlo is a Republican. A Ron Paul Republican perhaps, but a Republican nonetheless...

#11.1 The Distributist on 2010-01-21 21:18 (Reply)

Grant 1863: I am almost positive the flip flop occurred in the '80's perhaps the '88 Presidential? I would really love to know the answer to this one, trivial as it may be. Any students of media, or media watch dog groups, who can provide a reliably sourced answer?

#12 greenmtnpunter on 2010-01-21 18:49 (Reply)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_states_and_blue_states
My recollection was that it depended upon which news network you were watching until the 2000 election, when because of the very close results the notion of "blue states" and "red states" came about. I thought that the party currently holding the White-House was generally blue on most networks, but the Wikipedia article indicates that it isn't that simple.
BBC usually inverts in in their reporting, to help their home viewers understand the results. Blue is always Tory (Conservative) and Red always Labour.

#12.1 Douglas2 on 2010-01-21 20:47 (Reply)

Those round things are districts? Really?? How come they're not all squigggly and curved around like a boomerang or in the shape of a Giraffe? You guys don't know a thing about good gerrymandering - that would have kept Scott Brown down at 3% and ensured a Democrat victory.
It's what we got in California anyhow, districts that come up heads for the Democrats every time. No wonder we have so much Indian Reservation gambling - there's no oddsmaker in Vegas who would lay-out on the point-spread you have to beat.

#13 DirtCrashr (Link) on 2010-01-21 19:10 (Reply)

Those round things are towns. Massachusetts doesn't report it's results by districts. It reports them by towns. Back when I was a kid I had to learn and pass a quiz on the town boundaries and what the contiguous towns were. I can pick my old home town out on the map. It's red! It happens to be in Sen.-elect Brown's State Senatorial district.

#13.1 RonF on 2010-01-22 00:34 (Reply)

If you want to see a gerrymandered district, look at Barney Frank's. I'm sure it is pure coincidence that the more conservative bits in the Fall River area in the south are tied in with the very liberal Newton and a few other towns in Middlesex county.

#13.2 chuck on 2010-01-22 01:35 (Reply)

Massachusetts has always been two states in one. West of Worcester and east of Worcester. My home town Arlington, slightly north west of Boston voted blue. Now inhabited by whack jobs, degenerates, and other liberal malcontents. That dark blue near Boston is Cambridge. Home of the hopelessly insane liberals, and Skippy Gates, enough said.

Gringo did a good job of filling in the rest. PIP

#14 jappy on 2010-01-21 19:32 (Reply)

It's more like 3 states now. I grew up in fairly conservative Worcester County. All red except for Worcester itself - makes me proud. Boston and P-Town were always deep-blue.

I always assumed that the farther from Boston, the more conservative the people got. (Generally works that way in NJ with distance from NY and Philly.) But western MA has their own thing going.

#14.1 NJSoldier on 2010-01-21 23:59 (Reply)

Jappy I still live there! It hasn't all gone bad--there's still about 30% solidly Right in any election. Butm, sigh, yes, reliably Dem.

#14.2 Cathy J on 2010-01-22 12:42 (Reply)

It's the Beserkshires, isn't it?

#15 Rthur on 2010-01-21 20:44 (Reply)

Well, Birddog, I was going to say that the most successful lefties always wind up in the best places, what with their class system and slavish nodding-in-unison when they accept and buy into their self-abrogated pecking order. Look at me, for example, I may not be a Rich conservative, but I know I can stand next to Dick Cheney proudly (/i bit of /s here; we know we Conservatives think more than this, but am trying to find a point somewhere around this early morning ramble I'm making...)

But then Berkshire Conservative has a point; there be many who don't have the affluence of an upper westsider buying extra property to visit in his 2nd beemer on the weekends.

How then to explain it? it's not about money, methinks, but more about how we view ourselves. Folks up around those parts probably have a high opinion of katie couric, and think Olbermann is only "pokin' good, clean fun" at the opposition. You know, something along the lines of good intentions, the benevolent despot, us against them, etc. As long as there are those amongst the lemmings who are capable and charismatic leaders, they will always have plentiful followers.

Though certainly a difference of degree, it's probably how the Volk in the surrounding countryside were able to rationalize away the smell from the stacks nearby, imho...

#16 Unhyphenated American whose family votes with left arm always on 2010-01-22 06:55 (Reply)

just check the populations of these communities and you'll find that the only business in each town consists of a bar and a dairy mart frequented by retired town employees and folks who married their cousins.

#17 jim c on 2010-01-22 10:45 (Reply)

Towns? How novel! Thanks for correcting my mis-identification!

#18 DirtCrashr (Link) on 2010-01-22 13:25 (Reply)

towns are not our only novelty here in the northeast, but yes those are all towns that you are looking at, not districts. most of those towns have town greens with a church or two where militia used to muster to learn how to fight shoulder to shoulder, as that most were farmers. the novelty might be that history repeats itself with some regularity.

#18.1 jim c on 2010-01-22 14:36 (Reply)

Hm, read the whole thread, and no convincing answer.

I was bemused by the same question, and wrote it off to a dominant influence of all the colleges spread out in that area: Amherst, U Mass Amherst, Williams, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Berkshire Community, Hampshire, Western New England, Westfield State.

It seems the major industry in Western MA is "higher education".

Add to that the die-hard Dem unionists from the down at the heel, old mill towns in the Pioneer valley. Add in the hippie remnant and the diffusion from second home folk from Boston and NYC.

Does this make sense?

#19 KBK on 2010-01-22 22:04 (Reply)

Yep, it's a bunch of factors added together. Though off the top of my head, without detailed research, I doubt that there were many mills north of Springfield and Holyoke. In addition, while most old mill towns went for Coakley, some did not, such as Fitchburg and Gardner. But Springfield did go for Coakley.

Also the artist factor, which also ties in to the hippie factor and migration from NYC and Boston. Herman Melville had a place in the Berkshires, so it has long been an artist place. See my above comment about Tanglewood.

Which factor is most important? No idea.

#19.1 Gringo on 2010-01-23 10:56 (Reply)

KBK - could it then be considered the nexus of leftist olympus? Higher Ed firmly esconced upon the mountaintop, towards which wannabees flow like those marching towards the promised land?

(it's early, again!...)

#20 Unhyphenated American whose family votes with left arm always on 2010-01-23 06:29 (Reply)

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Thursday, January 21. 2010

The Lefty Berkshires