Where did all the Cincinnati Republicans go?

Enquirer reporter Howard Wilkinson writes today about the Republican Party's decline in city politics since the Democrat-Charter coalition took control of City Hall in 1971.

The map above shows what's happened. Hamilton County precincts that Republican George W. Bush carried last year are in red; precincts that voted for John F. Kerry are in blue.

With few exceptions -- like Hyde Park, Mount Lookout, Mount Washington, Westwood, Covedale and Sayler Park -- the GOP sphere influence ends almost immediately at the city limits.

It's not a phenomenon unique to Cincinnati. As Austin American-Statesman reporter Bill Bishop demonstrated in a series before last year's presidential election, Americans are increasingly segregated by party affiliation.

Democrats and Republicans once came from the same kinds of communities. Now they don't.

The two parties today not only represent different political philosophies but find their core support in different kinds of communities. The nation has gone through a big sort, a sifting of people and politics into what is becoming two Americas. One is urban and Democratic, the other Republican, suburban and rural.

Unless that trend reverses itself, Republicans will remain an endangered species in Cincinnati politics.