Snowbird Angela
 | |
| Era | The 2000s |
|---|---|
| Age | 60-69 |
| Home | Boca Raton, FL |
| Demographic | white Italian Catholic, retired to Florida |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
| Predecessor | Bensonhurst Rosalie |
| Successor | Detroit Denise |
Angela is an Italian-American widow in her sixties who grew up as a Brooklyn Democrat and has retired to Boca Raton, Florida. Her vote depends mainly on Social Security and Medicare, and she decides late in each election.
Who they stand for
Angela stands for retired white ethnic Catholic Democrats, the last generation of the New Deal coalition, concentrated in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Florida, where many retirees from Brooklyn and Queens settled on public pensions. This group had voted for John F. Kennedy, then Ronald Reagan, then Bill Clinton. In 2004 a majority of white Catholics voted for George W. Bush over John Kerry, a Catholic Democrat, and voters over sixty-five voted Republican that year and again in 2008. This decade tested the group. The butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County in 2000, the four hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004 and the insurance premiums that followed, the 2005 attempt to privatise Social Security, which this group helped defeat, the 2006 Medicare prescription drug benefit with its coverage gap, and the Terri Schiavo case in a neighbouring county all affected them.
Angela's lineage records the departure of this coalition from the Democratic Party. Bensonhurst Rosalie, an earlier generation, votes for her parents' party with only occasional lapses. By the time of Detroit Denise, a later generation, the same politics, defending Social Security, supporting unions and taking the worker's side against management, belongs instead to a Black woman in Detroit.
Playing to them
Angela is won mainly through Social Security and Medicare, the two cheques she relies on. A president who leaves both programmes alone, makes the Medicare drug benefit simple enough that her family needs no help with the forms, and explains this plainly, keeps her support. A president who studies private Social Security accounts loses her support. She decides late in each election, so the autumn of the campaign matters more to her than the president's full record. A hurricane season handled well and insurance rates kept low count for more with her than a year of speeches. She opposes abortion and gay marriage but votes Democratic regardless, so neither party gains anything by pressing her on those issues. She is more offended by a Congress that intervenes in a dying woman's family, as in the Terri Schiavo case, than by the religious doctrine the intervention claimed to serve.
Holding Angela's support through Social Security and Medicare loses Startup Seth, Abilene Ray and Country Club Whit, who want Social Security reformed. Keeping the government out of the Schiavo case loses Megachurch Heather and Jasper Faye. Fox News Phyllis tends to move with Angela on both cheques.
Where they live
The five states where Snowbird Angela makes up the largest share of the electorate in the 2000s:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- Connecticut
- Florida
- New Jersey
Lineage
Bensonhurst Rosalie → Snowbird Angela → Detroit Denise
The New Deal Democrat, and the one pairing the cast forces across race. Rosalie votes her parents' party. Angela votes Kennedy's party and votes Bush once after 9/11. Denise votes the union's party. Their politics are the same: Social Security, the union, workers against bosses. What changes is who holds those politics. The white ethnic Catholic left the Democratic coalition over these thirty years, and by 2019 the old labour Democrat is Black.