I live in the reddest of states with the most children per capita.

Seriously, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

It's news worthy in the same manner that reporting the Sun will set in the West is news worthy.

That said, many issues that are considered Liberal are gaining acceptance with time, such as gay marriage, the problem is that this doesn't always translate into election victory, even in the long run.

It's one of the reasons why I keep stressing we need to win over Republican votes in order to win national elections.

that the world was getting dumber because all the stupid people were fucking and having all the children. I thought that was maybe too simplistic of a theory. I guess I should've fleshed out my thesis more. And maybe called it a "Fertility Gap" instead of "Stupid-fuck theory." The only way to rectify this and create a fair political landscape is to implement mandatory abortions on 41% of the expecting conservative Christian mothers until the numbers are equal. Or just institute the draft and keep their war going for a decade or so (since poor Red-staters tend to vote against their best self-interests anyway) and those numbers will get closer to even.

And the circle of life continues. . .

It's true that conservatives have more kids. But they've been marrying their cousins for so long, a great many of their offspring are incapable of performing tasks much more complicated than pushing the remote button on the TV to tune in to FOX.

To those of us living in the south this gap has been obvious for years. There are many religious families that are breeding little armies and then home-schooling them to protect them from any "left" ideas.

I've had a pretty good idea that right-wingers and highly-religious types have more kids, but to be reminded of it only adds to the sting. This also holds true in a lot of heavily-Islamic countries with fundamentalist governments.

Imagine if this trend holds to the point where it becomes numerically impossible for those with any hope to preserve this planet (which includes keeping human population in check) to have any influence in politics. We would then deserve our own extinction.

I don't know who is more selfish - those who have lots of kids with no plan for their future, or those like myself who won't be having any kids at all...

(thunder crashes in background)

(select) synonyms for 'meek' from dictionary.com:

acquiescent, childlike, complacent, compliant, docious, ductile, easily influenced, governable, obedient, pliable, pliant, resigned, soft, usable, weak-kneed*, yielding...

While Brooks certainly may have a point, I have to point out one major oversight on behalf of the study: Just because one group simply has more children than another does not necessarily mean that those children will actually vote in local, state, or national elections. Given that Americans are voting in fewer numbers these days, there may be other factors that will shape the voting patterns of these two groups over the course of their lifetime: e.g race, gender, class, education, change in social status, sexual orientation. At the same, geographic location as well as the presence of social movements/groups and strong social networks can also impact the voting patterns of these groups as well. I would interested to see how political scientists or sociologists would approach this issue when considering the relationship between these variables and voting pattern among my generation, the echo boom/millenials, in particular. Thoughts?

Here we go again, the eugenic arguement. The poor, the Catholic, the black, the "feeble-minded," and now the right wing - pick your favorite fear - are breeding differentially! Disaster! The end of western civilization! What crap.

Were these samples evenly matched in those areas? I'm not so sure that this could be a representative sample, much less a relevant issue. The real question we should be asking is "Are Democrats doing a good job of representing the interests of the working class, immigrants, African Americans, and the poor?", as opposed to "Should we be popping out more kids or begrudging our conservative neighbors theirs?"

I've seen this "theory" before, and have the same reaction to it now, that I did then. It doesn't mean very much. Yet, it continues to get media play. Think how many people you know who are not comfortable with the politics/religion/ethics/values of their own families, with whom they happen to share some DNA and perhaps some happy memories.

Just because a person is born into a Republican or a conservative family, does not mean that he or she will follow suit throughout his or her lifetime. Likewise, for those born into Democratic or liberal families. All kinds of other factors-- besides DNA & nurture-- come into play: education, personal experience and choices, epiphanies, exposures to people unlike one's self or one's family. Over time, one's gender and age are signicant factors, since they have an impact on our personal experiences, as well as on the lives of our loved ones. (E.g., many men become more acutely aware of why feminism is so important when they have daughters.)

And don't forget popular culture. Joe Scarborough, for example, pays attention to popular culture's news stories because he admits that Hollywood and the entertainment media are far more effective at winning hearts and minds than anything in our political system. He and I are not even neighbors on the political spectrum, but we can still agree on that premise. Culture both changes and educates people. It's happening in concerts and tours all over the country. And in the movies, and in books. And on Comedy Central. Print and TV news may still be missing out on the important stories, but isn't that also reflected in their struggle for readers and viewers? If they had more of what people want-- instead of what the corporate VIPs demand-- they would have more viewers.

Why was "Family Ties" so poignantly funny? Because, no matter how hard they tried, the Keatons were unsuccessful at instilling their own liberal values into their oldest child. "All in the Family" was another example. No one agreed with Archie very much on anything. Period. (Now, a program with an updated version of that kind of appeal would be sacrificed on one of the cynical altars of profit and RealityTV. Joan of Arcadia, Everwood, etc., etc.)

And, then, there's the notion of "fair play." Even children understand that one, and when(if) a person matures and receives more data, its meaning often changes, if only subtly.

Now... if you want to talk about organized religion having an electoral effect, that's less easy to dismiss. For now.