Reply #30: And you know what we hate?

[Clark2008]

The fact that you don't "get" that there is this attitude in the red states and that it is very real and factors in more than you care to understand when swing voters hit the polls.

We could argue for days as to why this is - whether it's a bias in red state media or the fact that some New Englanders have moved to red state communities and want to change everything or the Nixon "Southern Strategy" (I suspect that there are a lot of factors) - but the fact remains is that it's a REAL problem.

I'm a Southern gal married to a Massachusetts liberal, so I don't necessarily fit this mold, but I do "get" that it occurs.

I have often contended that the reason Republicans do so well in what are now red states isn't because of racism or sexism or Godism or gunism - that it simply boils down to the fact that Republicans didn't "tsk tsk" and wag their fingers at the "stupid" Southerners and mid-Westerners. They embraced the slower and more agrarian culture. Democrats would do well to do the same - and they can do it without evoking racism and sexism - without turning it into a fight of "God, gays and guns," but by understanding that our culture and heritage is different, but not so different as to divide.

What you need to understand is that it's a problem that needs to be addressed, but won't be solved by the 2008 election; therefore, to win this round, we need to nominate a Heartlander and work to address the problem of red-state bias toward New Englanders - I happen to love my New England liberal more than I have ever loved another person not of my loin (my son), but, rather than the "fuck it" attitude you have expressed, he, after living here a great number of years, "gets" that the bias is real - whether the reasons behind it are real or not.