Top 10 States in terms of poverty rates:

Mississippi:    21.6%
Louisiana:      19.4%
New Mexico:     19.3%
Arkansas:       17.9%
West Virginia:  17.9%
Kentucky:       17.4%
Texas:          16.6% 
Alabama:        16.1%
South Carolina: 15.7%
Oklahoma:       15.3%

9 of those 10 states have voted Republican in each of the past 3 Presidential elections.


Why do these state keep voting against their own best interests?

FOOLS

gotta keep them Mezcans from gettin abortions for them gays after they take our guns

They're voting defensively.

Poor education

Belief of Republican "Talking Points"

Brand of "Patriotism" dictated by Republican politicians and entertainers

Caging, removing names from the list, disinformation -- just some of the techniques.
If you eliminate the poorer voters, the better off can use their votes to dominate the results.

Checking in from dumbass Mississippi where people always vote against their best interests.:banghead:

in poverty, infant mortality, obesity -- all the good stuff. Apathy is our biggest problem, though. A large majority of people I know don't vote and probably never will. The few who do vote keep the oligarchy in place. Many people I talk to believe in the right things like universal health care, but you'd never get them to get off their asses and support someone who advocated it. It's frustrating to say the least.

A bunch of fat-ass preachers working their churches as mere branches of the Republican Party. Sickening.

At least we're not last. Thank You Mississippi!

Johnson got it.

Sadly a few people today still miss it.

In most of these states, a substantial portion of their population that is living in poverty are black. They aren't the ones voting for Republicans. It tends to be whites, of most classes, pulling the lever for R's, and the tendency of whites voting Republican tends to be higher in states with high black populations.

Without putting too much work into it, I think I have something to look at.

It's not race. Yes, most of the blacks in WV are poor, but there are only two of them.

How about something more along the lines of all of these are states which experienced a mass exodus at some point (not all at the same time) and never got the rebound or backswing.

An exception might be New Mexico, but hasn't it sort of always been an economic no man's land?

the same.

Conservatives want to know that we share their values.

I think Obama spoke pretty well to those in the last election. It was well enough for a majority of Americans.

Take a look at this listing of the top cities (for educated population)

Only two of them are in high poverty states (Texas and Kentucky)

There is a correlation between education and income.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elearning/?article=educatedcities

Business has the power, small group of rich at top, diminishing
middle class and permanent underclass.

Think about it: even the Democrats sent to Congress from these
states--Pro Business.

religion of the evangelical sort and low levels of education.

Those same "get your greedy gubberment hands oudda my pocket" types?

Some of the richest counties in the state, such as Benton (home to Wal-Mart), Baxter, and Sebastian vote overwhelmingly Republican in Presidential elections due in large part to major influxes of population from other areas, particularly the Upper Midwest. I remember back in November 1970, one of the teachers in my elementary school in Benton County came to our lunch table and asked us, in a sort of pep rally, whose parents were voting for Dale Bumpers, the Democratic challenger to incumbent Republican governor Winthrop Rockefeller. All but two of the 30 or so students raised their hands.. Today, when newcomers outnumber locals, there would no doubt be a reversal (probably not as dramatic, though) of the results.

In contrast, there is Washington County, another relatively wealthy county that is home to the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas, which usually goes Democratic. Counties in the "Delta" (or more precisely, the Mississippi Alluvial Plain), which are among the poorest in the state, are usually Democratic strongholds in Presidential elections, as is Pulaski County, a wealthy county that is home to the state capital Little Rock.

That put knocked out the electricity or something, and they got a bunch of fix-it people to coming from another county/city/state, and the good people without power wouldn't let them in because they were black?

(Story is approximate due to lack of memory cells.)


EDIT: Ah - found it - not too bad for a guy with faux-early-onset alzheimers.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09058/951984-153.stm

"Earlier this month, about 100 electrical workers from Pennsylvania traveled to Madison County, Ark., to help restore power after an ice storm took out nearly every power pole in the county. About 30 of these electrical workers were black. The Madison County Record reported that they weren't exactly greeted like liberators by some good ol' boys of the all-white county. They were "subjected to racial epithets and other forms of harassment."

According to Madison County Sheriff Phillip Morgan, "Some kids were driving around them, waving Rebel flags and mouthing to them. They showed some weapons and were supposedly intoxicated." The boys of Madison County may not have had power for a few days, but it's never too cold to wave the Rebel flag. Freezing in the backwoods of Arkansas is preferable to accepting help from black folks bearing stinking 'lectricity."

Think "Dukes of Hazzard" and you've got Madison County.

That reminds me of the time back in the '70s when I took a field trip to Little Rock with some other teenagers from Benton and Madison counties, and we stayed at the Camelot Inn. We were having dinner, and the waiters were black. It was the first time some of those guys had ever seen someone who was not white. One of the 14-year-olds from Madison County who had just been swimming before dinner reached into his shirt pocket to get a smoke, and exclaimed "Shit! I got my goddam ni--erettes (rhymes with "cigarettes") wet!" just as the waiter was serving him. I felt so bad for that poor waiter.

Bennie Thompson (D) represents the Delta, which incidentally happens to have a majority Black population in many of those counties.

Politics for most of these people are sound-bytes heard on the radio or on FOX News.

In Mississippi where I live, sadly, the real big enclaves of Democrats tend to be in poor Black areas. There is a strong racial component in the demographic realities of who is a Democrat v. who is a Republican.

...but it is still the same folks... the same philosophies of government.

Doesn't matter whether D or R. Hell I probably would have been an R before Civil Rights kind of re-alligned that particular voting block. But I was born in 1960 and since I've been aware of politics as a child, it's always the Republicans with the conned-servative mindset.

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that may make a difference. Why do you think the Rs hate ACORN so much?

Translation: No income tax; let corporate fat cats run wild.

Not.

Poor districts often spend less than a quarter per student compared to more well off districts. Ignorance is the republicans' best friend.