Prior diaries have suggested that DKos probably has good representation of, or is at least reasonably diverse by, Age and Urban-SubUrban-Rural; but less so by Gender/Sex/Orientation or Income and Social-Economic Class; and not at all by Race/Ethnicity. This poll and discussion will cover our distribution by Region. Hopefully, as in the other diaries, it will also prompt a discusion of the concept & importance of Regionalism.
Apologies for preemptive blog whoring: but even more than before, the validity of this regionalism poll depends on its being posted as a "Recommended Diary" for as long as 24 hours in all U.S. time zones, so that it will get an equivalent representative sample of us - morning & evening west coast as well as east coast.
I would interpret the prior poll that had the admittedly self-selecting, non-random sample of repsonding Kossacks being 47% urban, 27% suburban and 24% truly rural as suggesting that Kossacks have pretty good diversity by this category. Just as we are a lot older than some cliches about bloggers would assume, neither are we just urban "elites."
But do we include all parts, all regions, of the country?
Do we include folks from the South, various Heartlands, Breadbaskets, Bible belts, real Americas, etc?
I would of course love to poll for all 50 States, D.C. Puerto Rico, etc. Alas, as always, Daily Kos polls are limited to a single question with up to 15 mutually exclusive categories. This prompts a discussion a discussion of the concept of U.S. Regions and Regionalism.
The States of the United States can be grouped by Regions that share certain social-cultural-political similarities. Of course nobody agrees on which states go where, and no doubt some will disagree with the entire enterprise. In my humble opinion "Regional" divisions are as arbitrary as those of Race that we discussed previously.
But let's try anyway.
Throughout U.S. history, different "regionalisms" made more or less sense, and have been used. In Colonial and early national history, the U.S. could be reasonably divided into New England, MidAtlantic, South and West, with the West being the lands that became the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio.
Categories that used to work are changing as internal demographics of States change. And many states are too internally heterogenous, with their own internal regionalisms to work. This is different than just Urban-Rural distinctions which we discussed in another poll in this series.
A good example known to all here in Kossack-land is Virginia, with northern (or at least northeastern) Virginia being more and more like a traditional Mid Atlantic State, and southern Virginia still being like the South. Perhaps less known is Pennsylvania, with the old joke being that it consists of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between. Simiarly, New York State is typically thought of as classic North Eastern or Mid Atlantic state, yet the southwestern part of the state is part of Appalachia. Other regions cross international lines, such as "Cascadia" which includes not only Oregon and Washington State but also British Colombia. No doubt there are many other examples you can suggest.
And of course an emphasis on categorization by one characteristic will come up with different groupings than categorizing by some other characteristic. Hence, traditional historical-political regions may not coincide with current federal regional offices or federal judicial circuits, or census offices, time zone divisions, agricultural areas, etc. These and many more are briefly discussed at the list of Regions of the U.S. entry in Wikipedia, which seems to be undergoing relatively active reorganization.
Lest I be accused of Wikipedia bias, Google and the Open Directory Project both have their own listings for U.S. Regions too.
As usual, I am starting with with the U.S. Census Bureau categories... but then modifying since I can subdivide further, and some of their groupings just seemed wrong (especially for the Southeast).
My biggest regret is not being able to properly include Appalachia, which includes sections of different states, but subdivides the states it does include. The closest is the grouping of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, under the truly awful term of "South West Mid Atlantic."
No doubt you all will have suggestions for better categories of regional grouping of states. :)
Caveats:
Of course these polls are not "scientific." Since the poll is inherently self selecting and is not a random sample there is always the possibility for selection bias bias including but not limited to responder bias, making the survey results different than truth. These will never be valid random sample. And just size alone does not make it valid since still self selecting and has inherent selection bias. But probably has some validity, though since not a random sample, and don't know enough about total population, sample frame and self selecting factors, cannot even measure how inaccurate it is. Yet probably has some validity... yet not valid and can't even measure how invalid... yet.... Granting all that, there are some indicators suggestive of possible validity in these polls: for example if distriubtion is relatively stable and does not jump around wildly this is not definititive but suggestive (at least that it is not being "freeped". Also, when poll done repeatedly, either same way, or only slightly different way (some advantage to doing slightly differently, if thought out, as test of validity), at different times, lets say different day of week, weekday and weekend, morning vs. night, months or years apart.
Some folks asked why should we do these demographic polls at all, and raised the issue of privacy concerns. As to the why question, the simple answer is "know thyself." Who are we when we spout off and comment? Also, it can be fun. It also helps the discussion of whatever the topic is, in this case, "America by Regions." And yes, maybe it will be reported by other media or be used to market advertising to the site. As to the privacy concerns, Kos has certainly made clear his strong views against "outing" the real identities of anybody. I do not know what access the site administrators have to the data or linkages of usernames to poll responses. Myself, I am just a regular user, and have nothing to do with administration or behind the scenes here. I don't know who has voted or what age goes with whom. All I have is the same bar graph and diary that is publicly visible. Also, there are no cross-tabs between any variables (e.g., prior urban-rural with this week's regional). It is not like a questionnaire with multiple separate questions per single interviewee. I guess the question is a matter of what the site administrators COULD access and link or identify if they were so inclined, whether they WOULD do so; and what protections are there on system to prevent an outsider from doing so? Clearly if there were a serious break of confidentiality/privacy, the Kos community would react very badly. The simple answer is, if you are that concerned, with this or any other issue, then do not participate; don't vote. This is a voluntary poll, within one of many diaries, among the nearly infinite number of webpages you can browse.
Some Regionalism Issues in Politics
- should the Democrats not really try to win back the South as Tom Schaller suggest in his book "Whistling Past Dixie"? Or is Webb's narrow victory in Virginia and Ford's close loss in Tennessee indicative of a possible new new south where Democrats can win, while still being true to a party values?
- are the Republicans doomed to be just the party of the old south and bible belts everywhere? Or does their continuing to hold seats elsewhere make this talk too hopeful?
- can the Democrats continue to make gains in the West North Central and Mountain West (see poll categories below)?
- ultimately how much of this is truly a matter of regionalism; or is it urban-rural; or it it something else; or really many different factors?
- what else is there to be said about regional differences or similarities?
Have at it :)
UPDATE: Kossack geographic distribution compared to U.S. as a whole.
h/t to commenter crisitunity below, but updating to "final results"
New England: 8% of Kossacks, 4.7% of nation
Northwest: 8% of Kossacks, 3.4% of nation
SE Mid-Atlantic: 6% of Kossacks, 4.9% of nation
W North Central: 7% of Kossacks, 6.7% of nation
Alaska: 0.3% of Kossacks, 0.2% of nation
Hawaii: 0.5% of Kossacks, 0.4% of nation
Mtn West: 6% of Kossacks, 7.0% of nation
California: 13% of Kossacks, 12.2% of nation
N Mid-Atlantic: 13% of Kossacks, 13.4% of nation
E North Central: 13% of Kossacks, 15.5% of nation
South: 6% of Kossacks, 10.1% of nation
W South Central: 7% of Kossacks, 11.4% of nation
Florida: 3% of Kossacks, 6.0% of nation
SW Mid-Atlantic: 2% of Kossacks, 4.0% of nation
My interpretation is that this is very good representativeness, a little low in the south, but not too bad.