Consider the chart below:
|
City |
Has had only Democratic mayors since |
Last time a Republican was mayor |
|
|
1962 |
1962 |
|
|
1961 |
1883 |
|
|
1936 |
1872 |
Of course these examples are cherry picked, but they certainly do demonstrate some dangerous myopia. One could argue that there are plenty of cities historically run by Democrats that have always had stable success, and I would agree. Colorado and New England, for example, are full of such places.
But that’s not my point. It’s not enough to show that strong populations can be primarily liberal. Since the Democratic platform–and definitely the popular appeal it tries to campaign on–is that their policies are good for the poor, the “disenfranchised,” the lower class, isn’t it fair to check that track record? Shouldn’t places run exclusively by Democrats be able to maintain prior success, or turn around problems those cities have had? If things have gotten bad–awful–after 50-100 years of solid rule, shouldn’t this say something critical of liberal ideas?
