Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2009 July 19

I only ask because if you look at the county map, Massachusetts seems to stick out as a Democratic bloc, while the rest of the Northeast (and the country) was almost uniformly Republican. Had McGovern campaigned especially hard in the Massachusetts primary? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 05:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Massachusetts is known as perhaps the most liberal state in the country. Conservatives have been known to call it the "People's Republic of Massachusetts." (A term of derision also used for Berkeley, California, Takoma Park, Maryland, etc.) -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And don't forget that McGovern's VP candidate, Sargent Shriver, married into the Kennedy family. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 21:13, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Still, both of those by themselves don't really indicate why Massachusetts when all out for McGovern and basically nobody else did. It's true that a number of other very liberal counties (San Francisco and Alameda stick out quite plainly), but even other usually quite liberal counties did not (e.g. Los Angeles). What's impressive is that almost no counties in the Northeast outside of Massachusetts went for McGovern, and that in Massachusetts even the Western counties went for him. I suspect it is not a question that can be answered by one fact or the other. It was, to be sure, a completely bungled campaign on his part. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 01:04, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather see that map in shades of purple; remember, one vote can make the difference between a blue and red county. Nixon's popular vote victory was substantial, but it wasn't the vast percentage the map indicates. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 04:55, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also LA was a lot less liberal in the 1970s. Googlemeister (talk) 14:07, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a stab at this, as I am a longtime Bay Stater. Massachusetts was probably the most liberal state in the country in the 1970s. The western parts of the state were and are no less liberal than the rest of the state. In fact, the least liberal part of the state is Southeastern Mass and Cape Cod, as you can see even on this map from 1972. Most people in Massachusetts strongly opposed the Vietnam War by 1972, so they responded well to McGovern's antiwar campaign. Also, Richard Nixon was widely disliked in Massachusetts, whose people tended not to go for his authoritarianism wrapped in faux-patriotism. As such, they did not respond as most other parts of the country did to the Nixon campaign's character assassination of McGovern. Someone else as already mentioned Shriver's Massachusetts ties. Two other big pluses for McGovern were strong union support in a state where unions were still strong. Blue-collar workers in Massachusetts have never taken as much to the cultural conservatism that has worked so well for Republicans in other parts of the country. Also, McGovern's Irish last name surely resonated in a state with a very large and political Irish-American population. Marco polo (talk) 01:35, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When a word is repeated for emphasis or to create a rhythm. For example, the word "never" in this poem about abortion:

I'll never have the chance to see what everyone can I'll never even learn to stand I'll never crawl, I'll never walk I'll never get the chance to talk I'll never smile,I'll never cry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.186.10.230 (talk) 16:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The general term is simply repetition. This particular example seems to be anaphora. Algebraist 16:18, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My Harvard-educated eleventh grade English teacher referred to precisely this effect as a "litany". I don't use the word litany however, and certainly not in this sense. (if I did use it, it would be in a phrase such as "a litany of grievances") 193.253.141.65 (talk) 18:21, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]