Affordable Family Formation

In the article linked above, Steve Sailer makes an interesting point about the characteristics of states that tend to be Blue vs. Red. It is essentially a materialist take on political preferences and makes a lot of sense if you look at the '04 electoral maps. (The source of his data is an interesting web-based tool call the Laboratory of the States, which is interesting to play around with for those of you who are statistically minded.) Of course, correlation does not necessarily prove causation. Let me step through his arguments:

1. Dirt Gap: This another way saying that Democrats tend to live in densely populated coastal regions, while Republicans tend to live in less densely populated regions. This factor is better seen in this map of Red and Blue America by county in comparison with a night-time satellite photo. I buy this to a point. It seems to me that even in the Reddest States that urbanized counties are pretty Blue. These maps clarify that point. Consider the polling data within the State of Texas. Kerry won the counties containing the largest cities (Dallas and Houston) within Bush's home state. This is highly similar the Exurban Trend that was discussed at length during the election.
2. The Mortgage Gap: Again, it is fairly obvious that more land and less desirable land lead to cheaper home prices. This causes a decline in fertility fairly directly. Living in a high-priced area forces residents to delay creating a family. Consider this map of California counties in the '04 election. Compare that with the counties that are having the most robust price appreciation.
3. The Marriage Gap: As it has been noted, there is a Divorce Gap, too. This is in large measure due to the large number of conservative Christians in Red States, who tend to divorce at higher rate than other denominations. The metric of marriage for women 18-44 is limited in its usefulness. It is designed to track the number of years married during 'child-bearing years', which is interesting from a fertility stand-point. On the other hand, it says nothing about the viability of those marriages over time.
4. The Baby Gap: The same religious groups that dominate the Red States have highly conservative views on birth control and abortion. It is not exactly shocking that those same states have extremely high fertility rates. It is hardly surprising that there is a Blue State-Red state 'Baby Gap', since the demographic the campaign was targeting has a high birth-rate. It is like saying that the recent Carl's Jr. Commercial caused their customers to be primarily "Men 18-34". In both cases, the target market was already EXISTING customers. The objective was to get them to consume more, so saying Bush was elected is the same thing as saying he got the vote of high birth-rate whites.

Frankly, the hypothesis that my material life is going to alter my thought life is a bit over-blown. I am two-thirds down the marriage-mortgage-children path, but if anything it has made me more liberal. As a property owner, I pay into the local government coffers via property taxes. I care a lot more about the health of the police, fire and education systems than I did as a single renter. Moreover, I am a much heavier contributor to the national military-industrial complex than I was in my twenties. This has effected my view defense spending and the Iraq War. Since I am a heavy net-payer for both the guns and the butter, I feel more entitled to my opinion on how that spending is distributed.