Many commentators have already compared the aesthetics of Palin’s book tour to a political campaign – the bus she’s using, the buttons for sale, the wild cheers. And looking at her announced tour stops through Patchwork Nation’s 12 community-type framework, there may be other campaign significance.

If you were to devise a campaign tour for Palin using Patchwork Nation it might look a bit like her current book tour. It’s a nice mix of carefully reaching out and focusing on the voters she would need if she were to run for president.

There are 18 announced stops so far (more to come):

• Nine are in community types that in 2008 sided with Palin and running mate Sen. John McCain: the growing “Boom Towns,” the small-town “Service Worker Centers,” and the “Military Bastions.”

• Seven are in community types that went to President Obama – the wealthy “Monied ‘Burbs,” the big-city “Industrial Metropolis,” Latino-heavy “Immigration Nation,” and the heavily African-American “Minority Central” counties.

• Two are in the aging “Emptying Nests” that split their vote between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain.

Selling a book versus a platform

There are, of course, obvious differences between a book tour and a campaign. The fervency of supporters helps a little in a campaign, but it is the central point of a book tour. It takes a lot to get people to stand in line for hours for a chance at an autograph and a handshake. And a wildly successful book tour – one with hundreds of thousands of supporters – would be a ridiculously tiny national political campaign.

Palin’s tour, though, is different.

“This is not a normal book tour. I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Haynes Johnson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of 16 books who himself just finished a book tour for “The Battle for America,” a tome on the 2008 campaign.

He notes that there are no stops in the big East Coast cities – Boston, New York, and Washington. “The combination of a political tour and a book tour is very shrewd on their part. They are reaching out and appealing to the 20 percent of the population who are her supporters.”

Palin is drawing from all over on her trek, of course. Her Michigan stop brought people from across the state. But her stops on this tour are more than just wading deep into Palin country for adulation. There seems to be some strategy behind the list.

A tour that Booms

For instance, there is not a single stop on the current tour schedule in an “Evangelical Epicenter,” the socially conservative places that were her biggest supporters in 2008. That’s not to say people from those communities won’t travel to see her, but the fact that she is not going to them is telling.

And the most common stop on her tour are the “Boom Towns” – six of the 18 stops. That’s significant. The Boom Towns hold a lot of people, about 61 million, and they lean Republican – McCain beat Obama by 5 percentage points there in 2008. But they do not have the same deeply ingrained cultural conservatism as the “Epicenters.”

The “Boom Towns” are, in other words, exactly the kind of place Palin would have to do well in to be a serious candidate for national office in 2012 or 2016. And now she will get media coverage in those places as her tour bus rolls into town.

The same could be said of the small-town “Service Worker Centers” – which lean Republican but do not have an especially religious bent. Palin is making two stops there – that’s as many as big and electoral crucial “Monied ’Burbs.”

The “Burbs” are Palin’s Achilles’ heel. Our conversations with people in those places last year showed she has little appeal there. That may be something Team Palin may want to be conscious of in its next set of tour dates.

Of course, there is no indication that Palin has set her mind on jumping back into politics. But keeping your options open never hurts, and if you really are going to combine a political tour and book tour, you might as well cover your bases.

See also:

What Palin’s move means for 2012

What next for Sarah Palin?

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‘Going Rogue’ book tour by community type:

• Boom Towns (6): Allen County, Ind.; Duval County, Fla.; Sumter County, Fla.; Washington County, Ark.; Collin County, Texas; Minnehaha County, S.D.

• Industrial Metropolis (3): Hamilton County, Ohio; Franklin County, Ohio; Monroe County, N.Y.

• Service Worker Centers (2): Washington County, Pa.; Roanoke, Va.

• Emptying Nests (2): Kent County, Mich.; Orange County, Fla.

• Monied ‘Burbs (2): Hamilton County, Ind.; Hennepin County, Minn.

• Military Bastions (1): Fort Bragg, N.C.

• Minority Central (1): Jefferson County, Ala.

• Immigration Nation (1): Woodbury County, Iowa

To see a map of all Palin’s tour stops, click here.

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Overall, this month’s average is 34.3 – 12 points higher than last month’s, with higher scores equaling more hardship. Scores are up across the board, and in some community types, the scores are up significantly. But they are being driven by particularly hard times in a few specific locales.

“The distance between high and low places grew wider on unemployment. So the lowest place may be around 1.5 [percent], but the highest places went from 28 percent to 30 percent,” says James Gimpel, a professor at the University of Maryland and consultant to the Patchwork Nation project. “Unemployment seems to be hitting the South pretty hard: Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee – these are right up there with Michigan,” which leads the nation.

Yet the bigger story this month may be that the disparity among the hardship scores of our 12 community types is shrinking. In other words, all the community types – be they the wealthy “Monied ’Burbs” or the Latino-heavy “Immigrant Nation” counties – are increasingly feeling similar levels of hardship, though perhaps for different reasons.

The hardship scores measure short-term changes in unemployment, foreclosures, and gasoline prices, combined with basic demographic data.

Good signs or bad signs?

Even though the hardship numbers are up again this month, there may be some good news in the scores. The evening out in the data may suggest that the hardest times are behind the country.

For months some community types, like the small-town “Service Worker Centers,” stood out from the pack with their high scores. But the rest of the types have caught up to them. We’ve noticed this a few times over the past few months – most recently September. Perhaps the continued flattening means the economic trouble has essentially bottomed out.

The proviso, of course, is the increase in bad scores across the board – pushed forward by the places that are really struggling. This one-month uptick is not necessarily cause for alarm. But if it becomes two or three months in row, the trend would be of more concern. It would suggest that the number of truly struggling locales within each community type is growing.

Differences remain

And even though our 12 community types may, on average, be feeling more alike, the hardship still takes on different forms across community types.

Double-digit increases in foreclosures between August and October characterized the “Monied ’Burbs,” the socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenters,” the growing, diversifying “Boom Towns,” the “Military Bastions” near bases, and the “Immigration Nation” counties.

The big-city “Industrial Metropolis” and African-American heavy “Minority Central” communities still have unemployment numbers in the double digits.

Meanwhile, even as unemployment and foreclosures are both low in rural agricultural “Tractor Country” counties, the lower incomes there mean their scores are higher. And some “Tractor Country” communities are hurting in other ways. Grain prices have fallen, and dairy farmers are taking a hit.

One Patchwork Nation blogger in Ronan, Mont., a “Tractor Country” community, wrote about the closing of a lumber mill that meant 100 jobs lost in a community of only about 2,000.

While the evening of hardship scores may be a good sign, the real test will come in the next few months: Do the numbers start to drop?

We’ll focus on the different ways places are hurting Wednesday in our Hardship Index. Here, we’re talking about how the recession actually “looks.”

In Eagle, Colo., a “Boom Town” that saw its population double in the last decade, the streets scenes look surprisingly normal.

There are some small signs that times have gotten harder. The Starbucks in the new downtown, where all the homes had gone up, recently closed. Buildings that were empty in July remain empty. But everything is well-maintained.

Winding through the postcard-ready landscape, there is little sense that the community is suffering. The struggles happen more quietly.

Behind the scenes

Home prices are down 10 percent from last year, according to the website Zillow. They are down about 17 percent from mid-2007. That means a lot of people here have taken a hit directly in their nest eggs.

Though Eagle is a town of only about 6,000 people, hundreds of homes are for the sale in the town and its immediate environs. Few “For Sale” signs are on the street – homeowners have decided against putting them out because of the sight they would make – but real estate agents can point out addresses and price points.

At the Eagle Valley Methodist Church’s “simple supper,” which offers locals free food and a chance to meet with neighbors, Donna Meyer, who works for philanthropies in the area, says the city got hit late and hard.

“It always hits us later,” she said looking around at the crowded dining room. “It hits us later, and it stays later. There are so many homes for sale here right now. A lot of people in construction are struggling.”

Ripple effects

Ripple effects from the construction slowdown here are numerous. A lot of the homes that sold during the boom went to people in construction.

Travis Barton, a young father with two children, had a managerial position at a lumberyard nearby but quit when he saw it struggling earlier this year. Now he is a technician for Orkin. The yard is now closed, but Mr. Barton says he is doing well.

Kathy Heicher, our Patchwork Nation blogger in Eagle, notes that more than 700 property owners in Eagle County have not paid their property taxes this year – more than $6 million lost.

Eagle is a good place to keep in mind as the recession of the last few years seems to be winding down. It takes a deeper look to get a feel for what is going in the economy. Even though things look good, there may be issues that are not apparent on the surface. Those things may take longer to clean up.

President Obama even had his grass-roots political organization, Organizing for America, involved in those campaigns to mobilize the voters who turned out for him last year. But in both states, turnout of younger and minority voters was down, as it has been in previous off-year contests. Why does the age of those who happen to vote matter so much to the outcome of elections?

It has long been the case that older voters hold more conservative views on a host of political issues than younger voters do. Typically, polls show a 12- to 15-percentage-point difference in self-identified liberal-conservative ideology between those in the youngest group and those in the oldest.

There are two main explanations for this association between age and growing conservatism: the life-cycle hypothesis and the generational hypothesis.

More conservative with age

The life-cycle explanation suggests that individuals’ viewpoints change as they move through various stages of life. The first major life change is the one from young adulthood to marriage and family, and is associated with settling in one location and raising children. In general, this shift is now happening later in life – into people’s thirties – than it did in the 1950s and 1960s. Transition from single to married with children is an unquestionably conservative force, turning people into homeowners and stakeholders, raising awareness of household budgeting, saving for college, and heeding the quality of schools, the levels of taxation, and the moral and religious instruction of children.

The next major life transition is to the empty nest, occurring between ages 50 and 60 for most Americans. This is accompanied by an increased attention to preparations for retirement, saving and investing, and health.

The final stage is retirement itself, with its focus on health and longevity, and the well-being of offspring.

Each stage, then, brings a slightly new set of concerns. While fundamental party identification may not change much with age, the kinds of issues that are important to one’s life certainly do. Compared with the carefree orientation of college-age single people, older citizens are much more restrained in their behavior and attitudes.

Each generation distinct

The generational hypothesis, on the other hand, suggests that each generation has a distinctive political imprint, wrought by events that socialized them in their teen and young-adult years, that remains relatively stable over their lifetimes. Hence, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) have always been more liberal than the “greatest generation” (born before 1928), no matter what their stage of life.

For example, in 1987, those over age 65 were Americans who had lived through World War II and the Great Depression. Surveys at the time suggested that about half of them saw themselves as conservative. But in 2009, 22 years later, far fewer of these Americans are still living, and baby boomers are on the cusp of retirement. Surveys show that only 30 to 31 percent of respondents over age 65 call themselves conservative. That 20-point drop is pretty dramatic.

There is probably some truth to both accounts. Perhaps not every generation bears a distinctive political identity, but some do.

What Americans say about their political evolution

An interesting July survey of 41,175 respondents by Zogby International asks what few pollsters have asked: Over your lifetime, do you believe your political ideology has become more liberal, has become more conservative, or has not changed?

Notably, the big shift in political orientation emerges at about age 35 or 36 and continues through the mid-50s, corresponding to the time when most people have settled and are engaged in childrearing (see chart).

Examination of these data by single years of age shows that those saying they have moved in a liberal direction over their (short) lifetimes are primarily between ages 18 and 27, with such reports dropping off sharply after age 30.

Those reporting having moved in a more conservative direction peak in the late-40s, with fewer respondents reporting that they have become more conservative after age 50. Still, many fewer Americans over age 55 (21 percent) report moving in a liberal direction over the course of their lifetimes than report becoming more conservative (50 percent). Baby boomers, approximately ages 46 to 63, may have started out liberal but readily admit becoming more conservative with time.

From a generational viewpoint, the age cohort that seems to have moved most conservative over time is the late-boomers and post-baby boomers who came of age during the Reagan years. Those Americans are now in their early and mid-40s. But the life-cycle explanation might be the better one – that the experience of family life instills more conservative values in many people – with respect to both economic and social issues, than they expressed when they were younger.

It would appear that as the current crop of youthful Americans moves toward settling down, their views on many issues will follow those of past generations and become more conservative, though perhaps not as conservative as their parents and grandparents. Related survey questions suggest that economic conservatism is especially likely to grow in middle-age, although social conservatism does as well.

Does where you live make you more or less conservative?

So, does where a person lives have any effect on the inclination to move in a more conservative direction with age? Looking at the chart through the prism of the 12 Patchwork Nation community types, it becomes clear that the general pattern – people become more conservative as they get older – exists across all community types, although some places exhibit more distance between young and old than others.

“Tractor Country” and “Immigration Nation” are locales where solid pluralities across all age groups report becoming more conservative over the course of their lives. Even 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in America’s most rural areas report having moved in a more conservative direction over the course of their short lives.

“Military Bastions” appear to have a very conservative socializing impact, as do “Minority Central” communities, “College and Careers,” and the “Mormon Outposts.” (College and Careers may seem surprising among this group, but there is quite a gap in viewpoint between the large number of college-age youths who report moving in a more liberal direction and the older residents of these counties who report becoming more conservative. Many of these older residents are not affiliated with the universities and colleges in these communities.)

The fact that the general pattern illustrated in the chart holds up across the variable geography of the nation does not mean that everyone winds up holding the same views by the time they retire. This is because people start from different places. Becoming more conservative in a large city may make one a moderately minded Democrat in the golden years. Becoming more conservative in a Military Bastion probably means an ever-more-conservative and Republican voting record. Political socialization is colored by local forces, in spite of some seemingly universal laws that apply far and wide.

Consider the unemployment figures for Patchwork Nation in September (the most recent month available for county-by-county figures). There are signs that things are getting better – in some places – but the changes are not the kinds of things you write home about.

Nine of our 12 community types saw small drops in the unemployment rate – emphasis on small. The average drop in unemployment in those places was 0.24 percentage points. Still, this means that the majority of our community types have experienced improvement in unemployment over the past few months.

Remember that unemployment is a lagging economic indicator: It will probably be among the last things to improve. So if we are in the early stages of a recovery, what does it look like where unemployment is concerned? We’ve found a few trends of note using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Urban areas are lagging

Only three of our community types did not see improvement in this set of unemployment numbers. Two of them are our most densely populated types – the big-city “Industrial Metropolis” counties and the wealthier “Monied ’Burbs.”

The numbers look particularly bad for the “Industrial Metropolis,” which had a rate of 10.6 percent in September. That’s the second highest among all our types.

Our thinking on the “Industrial Metropolis” locales, which are very diverse, is that they will experience a few different recoveries. The wealthy residents in these places will start to experience better times first as the stock market turns around – which it has been. It’s above 10,000 at this writing. The poor, on the other hand, will lag behind, waiting for a broader-based turnaround.

The numbers for “Industrial Metropolis” may look different for October. But these early figures suggest that even the upper-end recovery in these places may be slow in coming.

The flat 9 percent rate of unemployment for the “Monied ’Burbs” seems to indicate the same thing. These are the counties where many of those professional downtown office workers live. For the moment anyway, their unemployment number isn’t moving downward.

That could have significance for retail sales in the coming months. The “Monied ’Burbs” are full of people who spend the money that drives the economy, and these people may be cautious with their spending until things look better.

Agricultural America continues to thrive

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the rural and agricultural “Tractor Country” counties continue to thrive. The unemployment rate in these places was only 5.5 percent in August, and in September, the number dipped to 5.3 percent.

“Tractor Country,” which essentially functions in the framework of a different economy, may end up mostly avoiding the recession. However, farmers here are concerned about longtime drags on commodity and dairy prices.

Meanwhile, the small-town “Service Worker Centers” are showing improvement. Their unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage points to 9.5 percent for September.

Those communities have been rocked especially hard in the downturn, and the improvement is welcome news. But things aren’t completely sunny yet.

Last week, I traveled with a television crew from the “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” to Lincoln City, Ore. – a “Service Worker Center” on the Pacific coast. We talked with a lot of local business owners. Many were just hanging on, and now, the tourism off-season is approaching. They sensed an improving economy, but they had yet to see any real changes locally.

Longer term

When the economy does enter full recovery mode – which it will at some point – there are questions about what lasting impacts will follow.

What about the urban poor in the big cities? What happens to those who had jobs in the shrinking manufacturing industry? Maybe the biggest question: Will there be longer-term impacts on wages and the standard of living in the 12 community types – and in the nation as a whole? Many people in the communities we visit are concerned about that.

Those are questions we will examine.

• Since this is a blog, if you have ideas for ways to track data on these points, I’d be interested in hearing from you. Please leave comments below or feel free to e-mail me at dantechinni@gmail.com.

In the 210 counties that make up “Immigration Nation,” which are primarily in the Southwest, the economy and immigration are tied closely together. Cross-border traffic is a big economic factor.

In the past two years, as America has struggled with economic problems, the effects for “Immigration Nation” have multiplied.

Tighter attitudes toward immigration, combined with a smaller flow of people from Mexico, are dramatically altering the landscape.

2008 marked the first time since 1970 that America’s foreign-born population decreased, according to recent data from the US Census Bureau. Earlier this year, Janet Napolitano, secretary of US Homeland Security, said the economic challenges had led to a drop in illegal immigration. More-strict rules on border security, implemented in the wake of 9/11, have further impeded the flow.

In “Immigration Nation,” this has spelled economic trouble.

Traffic and spending slows

Last month KJZZ, a public radio station in Arizona, aired a report detailing the problems that businesses on both sides of the border have had as security measures have tightened. The customer base for those businesses have become much harder to reach. In Arizona, legal border crossings have dropped by 15 percent in recent years.

And the people who do come to the businesses simply spend less.

It’s hard to overestimate how much the economies in “Immigration Nation” are tied to cross-border traffic. Small businesses employ immigrants. Fewer immigrants mean fewer employees, as well as fewer consumers.

This spring, when we visited El Mirage, Ariz., an “Immigration Nation” community in Maricopa County, we heard from people about a definite drop in temporary residents. Many were instead headed to locales further north where there might be work, or they were simply heading home, according to Roy Delgado, a city councilman in the city.

That trend seems to have continued, according to Rachel Gomez, co-owner of the Rio Mirage Cafe.

“The immigration population is either changing, or people just aren’t going out to dinner or shopping or any of that sort of thing where they might be picked up by our sheriff,” she wrote in an e-mail. “In any case they are not working anymore, therefore not paying FICA [for Social Security and Medicare] and federal taxes, which they will never receive anyway.”

Further impact

Mr. Gomez says she never hires people without the proper documentation and she herself was born and raised in this country. But “her sheriff,” Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, has made illegal immigration a main issue, and sometime her friends can run into trouble.

The personal impact of immigration is vast, says Sylvia Rivera, who owns a local sewing business and who is also a US citizen. “I was personally touched by this when my friend’s husband was picked up and sent back to Mexico,” she wrote in an e-mail. “He’s been here for 11 years and has always been illegal.”

Ms. Rivera writes that the family should have taken care of that issue a long time ago, but she still feels bad for them. Regardless, the result is not just a hit to the people she knows, but also a hit to the broader local economy.

There is no easy answer, of course. Illegal immigration will continue to be a hot-button issue for the foreseeable future.

Combining that issue with economic problems, however, puts “Immigration Nation” communities in a unique and difficult spot. Recovery here could be a long, hard road.

The gubernatorial wins in Virginia (expected) and New Jersey (a bit of a surprise) are reassuring. But New York’s 23rd Congressional District, where party infighting helped Democratic candidate Bill Owens, sits out there like a big warning sign.

To recap that race: Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman choked off funding and support for Republican Dede Scozzafava, who eventually left the race. Ms. Scozzafava then endorsed Mr. Owens, and he won by about 5,000 votes – as Scozzafava captured about 6,000 protest votes.

As much as Republicans wanted to win the seat, some of them also reasoned that if Owens won the race, there would be widespread recognition that intraparty squabbling was at fault. So far, that doesn’t appear to have happened.

High-profile members of the more conservative wing of the GOP – former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint – have already announced that they will support conservative challengers to Republican front-runners in US Senate races in Florida and California. That could present trouble for the party in those places.

What happened in NY-23?

As we noted in Monday’s post, New York’s 23rd district held some peril for the GOP. It went for Barack Obama in 2008. In Patchwork Nation’s eyes, it is largely made up of small-town “Service Worker Center” counties. These tend to lean Republican, but they are more exposed to economic problems than some other places and are thus less tethered to political ideology.

When the results for the district were tallied, Owens’ margin of victory mostly came from three counties – Clinton, Franklin, and St. Lawrence. Owens would have won all those counties even without the Scozzafava protest vote.

What do they have in common? They all are thinly populated, and they have some of the area’s higher unemployment rates – between roughly 8 and 10 percent. St. Lawrence in particular is dotted with small colleges. And they went heavily for Mr. Obama in 2008 – between 57 and 61 percent of their votes.

Owens didn’t get quite those numbers, but voters in these counties still seem willing to give the Democratic Party more time in control in Washington.

Looking ahead to 2010

So what does all that mean for a potentially divided GOP in those Florida and California Senate races? It isn’t good.

The community types heavily represented in Florida and California could present real problems for Republicans if conservatives split the vote or force the eventual nominee to lean further right.

The east coast of Florida has densely populated “Monied ’Burbs” and Latino-heavy “Immigration Nation” counties. Both of those community types went for Obama in 2008. Tampa, as well as north of Tampa, contains a lot of diversifying “Boom Town” counties. Those places tend to lean Republican, but they also tend to be more moderate and could be put off by a divisive fight.

In California, the terrain is much tougher. The biggest chunks of the state’s population live in the big-city “Industrial Metropolis” and “Monied ’Burb” counties. Those places went heavily for Obama in 2008. The GOP might have a chance at winning those counties if it has a very moderate candidate and the economy is poor. Even in that scenario, the fight would be difficult. But a conservative Republican nominee would probably make it all but impossible.

The point of the community types in Patchwork Nation is to show that different types of places are motivated by different issues and ideas. Political views that work well in, say, Nixa, Mo. – our socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenter” – are very different from those that sell in Eagle, Colo., our “Boom Town.” We’ve chronicled such differences for almost two years now.

Then again, for many Republicans, the fight is over the party’s soul, not over winning seats in Congress. And applying more of a one-size-fits-all approach may help clarify a party’s identity.

But it will be a tough sell in the big “county” of America, with more than 300 million people – and with all 12 community types.

After a string of electoral defeats, supporters of gay-marriage rights thought they might have a winner in Maine. The New England state has an ingrained strain of stay-out-of-my-business libertarianism. But 53 percent of voters (according to the tally early Wednesday morning) did not support the law.

Yet when the results are looked at through the prism of Patchwork Nation, they’re not completely unexpected.

Much of Maine is made up small-town “Service Worker Centers,” and those communities tend to lean against gay marriage. According to our analysis of a recent poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, more than 65 percent of those in “Service Worker Centers” oppose legalizing same-sex marriage.

The fight over gay marriage isn’t going away, however. And a look at the opinions in Patchwork Nation’s 12 community types shows how complicated the views on same-sex marriage are. It also shows how hard any efforts to legalize gay marriage may be.

Where the support is

Only two of the 12 community types show strong, solid majorities in “favor allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally,” according to data from the Pew Research Center survey, which was in August. In the relatively wealthy “Monied ’Burbs,” about 55 percent offer support. In the collegiate “Campus and Careers” counties, that number is about 58 percent. (A third community, the aging “Emptying Nests,” look be to very slightly in favor.)

The one “Monied ’Burb” county in Maine – Cumberland – supported the gay-marriage law by big margins – more than 60 percent as of 1 a.m. Wednesday. Meanwhile, the three “Service Worker Center” counties immediately around Cumberland voted against keeping the law. (Maine does not have any “Campus and Careers” counties.)

What can we say about America’s “ ’Burbs” and “Campus and Careers” counties? Both community types voted for Barack Obama last November by sizable margins.

But understanding the voter breakdown on the gay marriage is more complicated than simply looking at the last presidential race. Take, for example, the big-city “Industrial Metropolis” counties. Mr. Obama won them in a landslide, with 68 percent of the vote – the most of any community type. On the whole, however, they are not in favor of gay marriage. About 55 percent oppose it, according to the results from the Pew Research Center poll.

That number isn’t too different from the one in the “Military Bastions.” In these places, 58 percent oppose gay marriage. And this community type voted for John McCain last November.

The breakdown on gay marriage, in other words, has to do with more than politics. Broader cultural issues come into play.

The terrain ahead

For supporters of same-sex marriage, a look at Patchwork Nation shows difficulties in building a strategy around just the friendly territory of the “Monied ’Burbs” and “Campus and Careers.” Yes, the “Monied ’Burbs” are populous, but in most states, they are counterbalanced by large areas of land that contain other community types. And although “Campus and Careers” counties are spread out across the United States, there are not many of them overall, and they tend to be more isolated.

With these limitations in gay-marriage support, proponents of same-sex marriage may find voter referendums a hard place to win for a while.

After the election, the media will sort through the votes and look for a larger political meaning, probably focusing most intently on the gubernatorial outcomes. But it may be the results from the congressional race near the Canadian border that actually mean the most.

New York’s 23rd is a sprawling district that contains all or parts of 10 counties, and nine of them are what we call “Service Worker Centers,” places dominated by small towns and lower incomes. (The other is a “Military Bastion” – Jefferson County, home of Fort Drum.) The district went for President Barack Obama by about five percentage points in 2008.

That’s not uncommon. While the “Service Worker Centers” on the whole lean Republican, their votes can move. Mr. Obama lost those counties nationally by about four percentage points in 2008. Four years earlier, Sen. John Kerry lost them by 12 points.

In other words, the “Service Worker Centers” became more of a swing group in the 2008 election. That’s what makes New York’s 23rd so interesting.

A Republican family fight

The 23rd has long been a Republican district, but a fairly moderate one. Its former representative was John McHugh, whom Obama selected to be his secretary of the Army. Until recently, the election looked to be a three-way race between Democratic nominee Bill Owens, Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava, and Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman.

But over the weekend, Assemblywoman Scozzafava dropped out of the race because she was sure she was going to lose. Her hopes had been slammed by Mr. Hoffman, a conservative businessman from Lake Placid.

Hoffman’s candidacy caught fire and became something of a cause célèbre within the GOP. The feeling was that Scozzafava, who is pro-abortion rights, pro-gay rights, and was endorsed by an organization with ties to the liberal group ACORN, was too far left for the Republicans even in a moderate district.

Even before Scozzafava dropped out, Hoffman’s supporters included talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. “Political parties must stand for something,” Ms. Palin wrote. “When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of ‘blurring the lines’ between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections.”

The conservative support and money that have poured into the district are signs that the right of the Republican Party is trying to send a message. And Scozzafava’s departure might be read as: “message received.”

What will Tuesday mean?

Before Scozzafava’s departure, the race was a dead heat between Mr. Owens and Hoffman. Though Sozzafava endorsed Owens, it’s not yet clear where her votes will go. But the stakes are pretty big.

A Hoffman victory will be characterized as a big win for the conservative wing of the GOP – and rightfully so – but it might also be a sign of a turbulent year for the Republicans in 2010.

There are community types in Patchwork Nation that will welcome a conservative victory – the socially conservative “Evangelical Epicenters” and rural, agricultural “Tractor Country” among them.

But there are also big districts around the country like the 23rd full of “Service Worker Centers” that are less ideological when they cast their votes. With lower incomes than most communities and higher unemployment, they tend to be focused short term on economic concerns. And they may be less interested in casting votes for the conservative movement than they are in casting protest votes against the party in power.

Keep in mind, the 2009 election in the 23rd is a special election (not part of the regular two-year cycle), and special elections tend to bring out the most politically active – the most liberal and the most conservative. That will probably be a big help to Hoffman Tuesday.

But 2010 will offer more of a standard-looking electorate.

If Hoffman wins in New York’s 23rd, expect to see a lot more candidates like him in 2010, though that might not be a good thing for the GOP in moderate districts.

This month’s Economic Hardship Index, for the first time, may provide a positive answer. By almost every measure in October, the index paints an improving picture in most of our 12 community types. Patchwork Nation calculates the index using economic indicators that include gasoline prices, foreclosures, and unemployment.

The average hardship score for all the community types dropped to 22.58 in October from 24.76 last month. The hardship scores fell in every one of the 12 community types except the “Mormon Outposts.” Those communities, which are primarily in the West, were hurt by gasoline prices and foreclosure rates that rose slightly.

Unemployment, meanwhile, fell in all our community types.

It’s probably still too early to declare that the economy is on the road to recovery. But these figures show that at least for this month, things are looking better in many ways.

Differences from place to place

Even in this month’s scores, however, there are clear differences among community types.

Rural, agricultural “Tractor Country” counties are again seeing the lowest hardship score – 19.74 in October. Those counties stand apart in a few ways: an extremely low unemployment rate of 5 percent and an almost nonexistent foreclosure rate of 0.15 per 1,000 homes. Those numbers are down from last month’s, and they are by far the lowest in any of our community types.

The hardship index measures short-term changes in economic distress – so small changes from month to month can mean movement in the scores. That’s why the “Evangelical Epicenter” counties experienced a drop in their hardship score, from 24.60 in September to 19.89 in October. This month’s score took into account that in “Evangelical Epicenters,” the August unemployment rate declined slightly and September gasoline prices fell by about 5 percent. (These statistics are the most recent available for calculating the October scores.)

A similar thing happened in the wealthy and educated “Monied ’Burbs.” These communities saw a drop in foreclosures and slight drops in the unemployment rate and gasoline prices to earn a hardship score of 19.95 this month.

However, the “Mormon Outposts” did not see the same kinds of improvements. Their hardship score went from 24.10 in September to 31.55 in October. That’s partly because gasoline prices in the West have been so high – particularly in Utah and Idaho, where many of the “Outposts” are located.

Troubles remain

Even in some places where things are looking better, they are not looking great. Take, for instance, the small-town “Service Worker Centers.”

The economic outlook in these communities improved only marginally in this index – a score of 25.43 versus 25.97 in September. Foreclosures there rose by 12 percent between July and September. Unemployment dropped in September, but it is still high – at 10.13 percent.

Another community type seeing limited improvement is the big-city “Industrial Metropolis.” While its hardship score went down to 23.43 in October – from 26.66 in September – its unemployment rate has hardly moved: In August, it was 10.29 percent, and in September, it was a barely better 10.25 percent.

The real improvement in the “Industrial Metropolis” came from a drop in foreclosures – down about 9 percent since July.

What does a recovery look like?

In the coming months, the numbers within the hardship index – gasoline prices, foreclosures, and unemployment – may be as interesting to watch as the index itself.

If indeed the United States is in the early stages of an economic recovery, that recovery will not be uniform. Our different community types will see different sorts of improvements, and some will see more than others. The numbers in the index will help show what is going on.

The differences in what our community types are experiencing economically will play a big role in coming policy debates – whether aid is needed, how much, and where. The differences will also play a big role in the elections of 2010.