John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge of The Economist have published an op-ed titled “Cheer Up, Conservatives!” in today’s Wall Street Journal that includes this disturbing paragraph:

If the American dream means anything, it means finding a plot of land where you can shape your destiny and raise your children. Those pragmatic dreamers look ever more Republican. Mr. Bush walloped Mr. Kerry among people who were married with children. He also carried 25 of the top 26 cities in terms of white fertility. Mr. Kerry carried the bottom 16. San Francisco, the citadel of liberalism, has the lowest proportion of people under 18 in the country (14.5%)

Minorities don’t want to find a plot of land to shape their destiny and raise their children? Sorry, but I grew up in the Silicon Valley in California, and the immigrants who come there from all over the world to make a better life of their families are the living embodiment of the American dream.

Also, there are several other possible explanations for this pattern of Bush/Kerry voting:
1) Cities with more gay people, which tend to be more liberal, will have lower fertility rates.
2) People with graduate education — who are more likely to vote Democratic — cluster in some information economy cities. They have fewer children and have them later, on average, than other social groups.
3) Religious people who are more likely to support Republicans may cluster in other cities and have a larger number of children, on average, than the rest of the population.

What nonsense.