St. Louis ranks as No. 1 city for liberals

(This has to be the City of St. Louis not St. Louis County.)

St. Louis ranks as No. 1 city for liberals

By Joe Holleman St. Louis Post-Dispatch 2 hrs ago (10)

A big tip of the beret to St. Louis, which has managed to out-left the liberals in Berkeley, Calif., Cambridge, Mass., and Boulder, Colo.

And that, my comrades, is a whole lot of liberalism.

According to a study by Livability.com, St. Louis is No. 1 when it comes to liberal cities in the U.S.

Along with election data and political activity, several touchstones of popular/consumer culture were used as factors, such as a person’s favorite television network, automobile brand, restaurant and magazine.

(For the record: St. Louis residents are most likely to watch HBO, drive a Subaru, read Maxim, shop at Victoria’s Secret and eat at California Pizza Kitchen.)

The study said: “St. Louis is a true-blue community, and it has been for several years. For example, during the 2008 presidential election, President (Barack) Obama easily carried St. Louis, and 82.7 percent of St. Louis voted Democrat in 2012.”

Mayor Francis G. Slay, gets prominent kudos in the study, which notes that Slay, a Democrat, has been elected to four consecutive terms and also helped the city become one of just 25 (out of 291) cities to get a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s “municipal equality index.”

Christopher Pilny, Livability’s managing editor, states the obvious about political leanings.

“We like to think we’re open-minded and receptive to other ideologies,” Pilny said. “But the fact of the matter is, we tend to surround ourselves with people who think like us.”

For the record, here are the top 10 liberal cities: St. Louis; Berkeley; Hoboken, N.J.; Cambridge; Bethesda, Md.; Evanston, Ill.; Alexandria, Va.; Boulder; Ithaca, N.Y.; and Kailua, Ha.

Respecting equal-time rules during an election season, here are the top conservative cities: Bullhead City, Ariz.; Enid, Okla.; Alabaster, Ala.; Asheboro, N.C.; Burleson, Texas; Bristol, Tenn.; Benton, Ark.; Slidell, La.; Brandon, Miss.; and Columbus, Neb.
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/st-louis-ranks-as-no-city-for-liberals/article_549c40af-ce23-5601-ba12-bfd561648862.html