Writing until you are red in the state...

Via Insti comes yet another look at those crazy red staters.

Many have pointed out that the article is fairer than others, it's hard to consider an article with a line like I couldn't help noticing that among the people Paul Kern won't likely hit with a far-flung snowball are black people, openly gay people and people born in foreign countries as terribly sympathetic. It implies that anyone who wants to live in the country is a racist homophobe.

But what I find most puzzling about articles of this type is that they seem to assume that if any given state went red or blue, everyone in that place confirms to that political idea - which is not true. Newark and Far Hills are both in New Jersey, but are economically and politcally worlds apart, and I would guess that there are many places in the U.S. that fit that idea...

Instead of focusing on how divisive the red state/blue state thing is, I would love to see a reporter look at those that don't fit the sterotypes - conservatives in big cities, liberals in small midwestern towns, maybe even gay Republicans or Nascar fans who voted for Kerry.

I say this because I'm an odd duck myself - I vote, and in many ways think, red state, but I live in the middle of Baltimore (83% Kerry voters). How liberal is my section of Baltimore? My city council choices were between a Dem and a Green. No Republican. And I might not be a great example - I'm a transplant (although from NJ, another blue state, although Somerset county where I'm from is fairly red), and I will probably move out of the inner city at some point in the near future.

But part of what is great about America is that we aren't all red states and blue states. We are individuals, with our own individual ways of thinking. Many of us, by choice or by happenstance, may live around people with similar views, but some of us don't and are OK with that. Not every Bush voter is someone who has never seen a gay or a minority or lived in a rowhouse. And I'm guessing there are probably some Kerry voters somewhere who run a cattle ranch and live in Texas.