“To me diversity is more than just race, it’s the sum of your perspective – who you are in beliefs and actions.”

Absolutely. Every one of us is a package of contradictions. Liberal Democrat is the furthest Right my politics have ever gone, but of the other parties my sympathies are probably closest to Libertarian. To this day I have no idea of my parents’ politics, we didn’t talk about that sort of thing. I was raised working class in a poor semi-rural neighborhood, but was drawn to cities. I hung out with intellectuals but didn’t get my BA until I was over 40. My wife & I have a good income because we’re at the tops of our fields in Portland, but the fields are nonprofit consulting and yoga.

And I’d say most of the people I know are liberals, but they’re a wide range of income groups, races, orientations, beliefs and professions. Trying to pigeonhole individuals by their occupations or income is as misguided as pigeonholing them by race.

One of the points of The Big Sort is that America is losing a lot because of living in enclaves and talking in feedback loops. At first I was annoyed by the number of conservatives on this blog, but I’ve come to value it.

I would love to see some research into the differences between parents and their children’s voting habits. Most democrats I know also came from households of parents who also were democrat. I think that could make for interesting reading on both sides. If anyone reading this knows of any, please let me know.

I also think the numbers for this past election aren’t nearly as useful as the 2012 will be. I believe the next election will cement whether a state really is red, or really is blue. Will California’s liberal bent go by the wayside as bankruptcy pounds it? It should be interesting.

What’s more interesting to me is that the Dr’s, techies and business owners I know voted Democratic. We tend to live in self-reinforcing feedback loops, as described in The Big Sort. Blogs are one of the few places we interact with people different from ourselves.

No, not really – wrong on all of the above. I am a part of the creative class, I live in an expensive home, and have an upper income. I just couldn’t find anything in obama that I agreed with. I knew his economic policies would be a disaster (just didn’t know that fast), and I don’t have euro-envy.

I agree that the creative industries are the future, but I don’t believe that translates automatically into a liberal viewpoint. My area is heavy in medical technology and pharmaceuticals. My unscientific (personal) poll found that most of the people I talked to (dr’s,techies,business owners) all voted Republican; hardly the bitter, poor, working class people you are trying so hard to label us as.

So I guess the McCain regions are more working class. They’re also lower income and lower housing prices. If we think the creative class economy are the future, then these regions seem to cling to the past or old economy. Allowing for the fact that many of the Western McCain states are pretty unpopulated, it still says that the South and lower Midwest are working class. I wonder what the industries are?