One Big Long Tangent

One Big Long Tangent

Open Left takes a look at some of the reddest and bluest counties in the country and notes that enclaves of strong, historic ethnic identity plays a big role.

Makes some sense to me; I mean, everyone knows us Swedes are a bunch of socialists.
Our own Sioux County, very Dutch and very red, is offered up as one example. And I've lived in another one of the places listed: the very Polish, very blue Portage County in central Wisconsin. I lived there when the Berlin Wall fell, and believe me it was a big deal. Our local TV news came from a town the next county over, Wausau; we used to call it "Warsaw" and that wasn't much of an exaggeration.

The part I can't figure out is just why the Dutch community, and the old-line Protestant Dutch Reformed Church, is so particularly conservative, especially considering the you put your weed in it direction the mother country has taken.

Speaking of which, the American Medical Association is taking a break from the health care war to get behind medical marijuana.