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Posted: 8/13/2005 5:05:32 PM EDT

Posted on Sat, Aug. 13, 2005

Think tank's rankings call Dallas 'liberal'

By Lance Murray

Star-Telegram Dallas Bureau

A California think tank says Dallas is a more liberal city than Austin, long considered the bastion of Texas liberalism.

A Dallas political scientist says conservatively, "it's ridiculous."

According to the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, a nonprofit think tank based in Berkeley, Calif., Dallas is a more liberal city than Austin based on minority population and voting patterns in the cities during the 2004 presidential election.

Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson laughed at the thought.

"I have no idea how the study was done, but that's ridiculous on its face," he said. "Anyone who has ever lived within 1,000 miles of Dallas knows it's a conservative city, ... particularly when you think of the weight of money as opposed to one man, one vote."

The center ranked 237 cities with populations over 100,000 and placed Dallas at No. 32 and Austin at No. 93. The study found that cities with large black populations -- according to the 2000 census, Dallas is 26 percent black, Austin is 10 percent -- tend to vote for liberal candidates. Detroit, Mich., was ranked the most liberal. Fort Worth landed at No. 163 on the liberal city list.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the center ranked Arlington as the 14th most conservative city in the nation.

"The only way to make it apples to apples was to look at the presidential election," said Jason Alderman, a director at the center, because it was the only opportunity for everyone to vote for the same candidates.

In 2004, President Bush, a Republican, carried Dallas County with 50.3 percent of the vote to Democrat John Kerry's 48.9 percent. Kerry easily won Travis County with 56 percent.

But, Alderman said his group's analysis was based only on precincts inside the city of Dallas, not the surrounding suburbs in Dallas County. He said they obtained the results from each county and then broke the numbers down by city themselves.

"We looked at the city limits only ... to make it consistent," Alderman said. He said, however, that he did not have access to the city of Dallas' figures used in the study Friday evening because an associate had taken them with him. Online data searches for the winner within Dallas' city limits yielded little, other than political bloggers who said Kerry won there by a wide margin. The Dallas County Elections Department Web site does not offer a breakdown of the presidential election by city.

The group's rankings of the most conservative cities in America was led by top-ranked Provo, Utah. Three other Texas cities joined Arlington to rank among the nation's most conservative: Lubbock at No. 2, Abilene at No. 3 and Plano, No. 5.

Staff Writer Patrick McGee Contributed to This Report.

Dallas is more liberal than Austin.

I can smell BS all the way from Texas to Kali.

Posted: 8/13/2005 6:41:29 PM EDT

[#1]

Can you say John Willey Price? The Dems are in power in Dallas city proper. But I don't know about being worse than Austin.

The burbs are conservitive.

Posted: 8/13/2005 6:59:45 PM EDT

[#2]

Yep... I'd have to think about that before calling BS. They just might be correct.

Posted: 8/14/2005 9:40:18 PM EDT

[#3]

I won't comment on Austin....but Big D (in the city limits proper) has definitely got a bad liberal stench to it....

Posted: 8/14/2005 10:10:41 PM EDT

[#4]

Heh.

Arlington is the 14th most conservative city in the nation

I knew I liked it there for a reason!

Posted: 8/14/2005 10:56:32 PM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:
I won't comment on Austin....but Big D (in the city limits proper) has definitely got a bad liberal stench to it....

Agreed.

Posted: 8/15/2005 4:04:14 AM EDT

[#6]

We're Number Five! We're Number 5!

Plano...as the Nation's Most Conservative cities.

Erict The(Plano)Hun

Posted: 8/15/2005 4:24:25 AM EDT

[#7]

Couple of things here. The margins of victory in Dallas County are a little too close for my liking. City of Dallas is pretty liberal compared to its neighbors. Arlington as being the 14th most conservative city in the nation is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first thing is that Arlington susally has a very small voter turn out. The swing neighborhood in Arlington is the area west of Cooper and north of I-30. Arlington's demographics go very much against a conservative voting record. Arlington has changed drastically since I left for college in the summer of 1990. I think Arlington has the ability to stay a conservative city, but it needs to figure out how it is going to redevlop east Arlington and address what to do about aging apartment complexes. Arlington got screwed in 1991-1992 when the city was not made its own congressional district, but removed from Dick Armey's, and the conservative sections were placed under Martin Frost, and the other sections under Joe Barton. The Dems in the legislature gerrymandered Arlington to keep it from being a Republican seat

P.S. Done a little reserch on this.

Posted: 8/15/2005 5:00:14 AM EDT

[#8]

Well......I live in Austin, I've never lived in Dallas, but I do keep up with politics and Austin consistently makes me want to puke.

To make things worse I have gone to UT for the past 5 years, that's like a liberal oasis within the larger liberal oasis of Austin.

I can't say for sure that the city of Dallas isn't worse, but I definately see more pro-Bush stickers on cars driving in Dallas than I do in Austin.

I personally call B.S. on this one, but that's just my opinion. And it's not such a bad thing when these liberal so-called "think tanks" get it wrong.......let the liberals get a big head and think they are taking over Texas, just to be shot down again the next election.

Ahhhh, liberals..........they make me laugh.....and cry sometimes.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - BS or no BS....

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