Do you suppose that this idiot has ever even been to one of the "red" states? Is he unaware that that half of America's coastline runs from Maryland to Mexico? What was that comment "...the few critical places where Godly and Worldly America do actually rub shoulders.."? The "reddest" states gave Kerry a third of the vote. We "rub shoulders" all over the country, every day. What a jerk.

I though even in Mass returns for Bush were
in the near 40% range.

The real fault of this "analysis" is that it does
not mention ...

a) race
b) union membership
c) govt. employee vs. private sector employment

Not that many of us are as partisan as Michael Moore and Orrin Judd.

One thing that has always struck me as weird about American elections is that even popular candidates have a hard time getting more than 3 out of 5 votes. For every 3 for, there are 2 against. (Even running against 3 hopeless clowns, Dan Inouye, as successful a candidate as this country ever produced, got less than 4 out of 5 votes this week.)

That's why I think Orrin is dead wrong in his attempt to create a one-flavor state. One, it's never going to happen. Two, it would be a disaster if it did happen.

Only once in our history did a politician and his faction dominate the electorate. That was Madison, and his faction quickly fell apart.

We are the only place in the world where people who disagree get along. Orrin would have all the minority thinkers expelled. Make us like Spain or Japan or South Africa.

I like us the way we are.

These are caricatures with a grain of truth to them. The "Godly" are worldly as well. To read this, you would have to believe that Red Americans lived like the Amish. The Northeast is religous and blue collar, but it is mostly Catholic and urban. There is a great cultural mistrust among these groups to southern, evangelical religiosity. It is secular in the sense that it is comfortable with evolution and secular government, and sees evangelical creationism and school prayer crusades as an attempt at cultural takeover by southern protestants. I grew up as one of them, I was very religious but at the same time saw people like Oral Roberts as some kind of alien being. Don't underestimate the regional cultural differences among the religious.

Here is yet another writer blinded by his self annointed progressiveness.

Harry is exactly right, and understands the irony completely.

To the extent individual religiosity is important to civil health, it is made possible only by the utter absence of government imposed orthodoxy of any kind.

Besides, should one particular Christian sect get its way, the rest would reach fever pitch long before the areligious would even think about having throbbing forehead veins.

Most of my acquaintances could only be described as worldly; a goodly portion of them think religion is just fine for the religious, and happiest when the religious agree.

Not one of them is a self defined progressive.

All voted Republican.

Go figure.

I particularly like the way this geographical whiz proclaims that "Godly America" is "solidly continental and landlocked." I wonder how the coastline stretching from Texas to Maryland compares to the West Coast plus Northeast? And heck, throwing in Alaska blasts the comparison to smithereens...

Wow. Diagnosis without examing the patient, or even learning his age, sex, height, weight, blood pressure, body temperature or obtaining any lab results. Very impresive!

But not Science.

In case any of you were still wondering what became of Clark County, OH.

Thank you, Guardian. We must do this again.

Dangit I *liked* Simon Schama. I thought his History of Britan was top drawer. Historians should learn to keep mum about what's happening now.

Schama was good on Britain because he knows the place. $50 says he has never been outside the fabulous lost island of Manhattan in the US and then only on the Upper Left Side. The problem of yapping about what you are ignorant of.

It would be easier to "turn" Schama's Godly American to a candidate perceived as a moderate on the Democratic side -- see Bill Clinton in 1992 -- than to for the same thing to happen on the Worldly American side, going by New York's example. You simply cannont even hope to elect a Republican there unless the Democrats hold all levers of government and things are still completely in the crapper.

If there are no "R" politicias to blame at the city, state, or national level, as was the case in the two years after Clinton's election, only then will some people be willing to take a chance with the Republican side. And even in 1993, Giuliani's margin over David Dinkins was about the same as Bush's victory over Kerry. It was only four years later, when those who tend to follow the New York Times and the other media and intellectual elites' lead, could see that a Republican mayor wasn't the devil incarnate, that Rudy scored a blowout victory over ueber-liberal Ruth Messinger, who still had the hard-core elitists' support (and if you any positive feelings for New York, you have to shudder at the thought of Mayor Messinger on 9/11).

Taken out to t he national level, while there are some in the Blue States willing to change their minds after seeing their fears be proven wrong, the is another group that won't alter their view unless the Democrats have ruined everything without a Republican in sight (1966, 1994). Past that, you've got those who wouldn't change horses if their lives depended on it. In either case, I have no desire to test out the future application of those principles any time in the future.

Robert:

I guarantee you he didn't look at those red-blue county maps before declaring California, for example, monolithically blue.

"there is another group that won't alter their view unless the Democrats have ruined everything without a Republican in sight (1966, 1994)"

Don't forget to add 1980. GOP took the Senate for the first time in a couple decades.

Fred: It would shock the hell out of him to Know that Staten Island and Rockland County, NY in the NY metro were red and Nassau County was close.

I also think the writer overestimates the worldly of the Worldly America. I just went to New York City. I have been several times before, pre-Guliani, circa-Guliani and post-Guliani. This last time, my husband and I spent 4 hours inline skating in Central Park and also spent several hours walking through it. We did not see one bum. Not one. What did they do with them all? Also, all the bars and restaraunts were very pleasant to visit because of the no smoking. And it was the cleanest I have ever seen the city. Now, is all of this a product of Worldliness? I suspect not. I'd love to hear why the city is so different (even under Guliani) from anyone closer to the city.

Also, for all their gnashing of teeth over big companies taking over (Enron, Halliburton) I have never seen a city so taken over by 1 company. There is literally a Starbucks every 2 blocks on Manhattan and every one was full at all times. Here in St. Petersburg we have 2 and they definately have lulls.

Buittercup --

Not that I'm in New York anymore, but I still visit enough and know enough people there to tell you the memories of the Dinkins squalor remain, reinforced by the effort the city had to go through emotionally to recover f rom 9/11.

My fear, though, is we're getting pretty close to the point when those New York City "swing" voters -- that is those who would vote for a socially liberal Republican, though not for someone like Bush -- will start to again think that the city's current crime and basic social lifestyle levels are unremarkable compared to a dozen years ago, and anyone can keep things going in the same direction. As much as I have my problems with Bloomberg, his opponent next year is likely to be far worse, and if he's elected, look for the downward cycle of the Dinkins years (and the Lindsey/Beame years before that) to start all over again.

NYC used to be unlivable for the poor, the middle and the rich. Now just for the poor.

My son and daughter-in-law who live there really cannot conceive of how bad it used to be. In 1985, when I was spending a week at the Times, a friend who worked there warned me to watch out for balloons full of piss thrown out of the windows of the welfare hotel across from the entrance to the newspaper building.

Now you only have to look up for Arabs.

"Bums?"

Apparently there are plenty of homeless in NYC. They probably just don't go inline skating. Too expensive a hobby for people who can't afford homes there.

Halliburton = fraud and destroyed retirement plans
Halliburton = FBI investigation
Starbucks = coffee...apparently pretty popular stuff!
Bye.

Yes, bums. People who sleep on park benches, leave the lovely smell of p*ss everywhere (and not because there are no bathrooms available), accost you at anytime for some money to buy food as they are reaching for the pack of cigarettes and flicking a butt on the ground. I could go on, but I know a bum when I see one.

And whether or not inline skating is such an outrageously expensive hobby (mine are from Target for 19.99 with no other costs) is debatable, you don't skate in a bubble or walk in one either. But calling a bum "homeless" is being in a bubble.

I just find it ironic that the same people who flock to Starbucks will moan about Walmart destroying small business and the Enrons and Halliburtons of the world. Have they no principle to apply to their daily life? Shouldn't they frequent the struggling small coffee shops? After all, Starbucks is big business and the question (to those inclined to rail against corporations), like with Halliburton, isn't whether they are a capable company or not, just that they are a big corporation. Of course, they always manage to leave out Global Crossings, but that involved a lot of Democrats, including McAuliffe.

RE: "Worldly America is pragmatic, practical, rational and sceptical. In California it passed Proposition 71, funding embryonic stem cell research beyond the restrictions imposed by Bush's federal policy. Godly America is mythic, messianic, conversionary, given to acts of public witness, hence the need - in Utah and Montana and a handful of other states - to poll the voters on amendments to their state constitution defining marriage as a union between the opposite sexes."

He must not know about Prop 22 -- gay marriage is not allowed in pragmatic, practical, rational and sceptical California, either.

What's pragmatic about embryonic stem cell research?