Politics in America now clash of ideas shaded in red, blue

American politics appears to be hardening into uncompromising camps, increasingly identified with the Republicans and Democrats. In a three-part series in The Seattle Times, The Washington Post examines that division.

By David Von Drehle
The Washington Post

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Related stories Perfect archetypes of red, blue vie for White House

Yet, like a bathroom scale springing back to zero, the electorate keeps returning to near-parity. It's happening again: A little less than six months before Election Day, numerous polls find President Bush in a tight race with Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry among a sharply divided electorate.

A large number of voters — seven in 10, according to one Pew Research Center poll — say they have made up their minds and cannot be swayed.

What explains it? From Congress to the airwaves to the best-seller lists, American politics appears to be hardening into uncompromising camps, increasingly identified with the two parties. According to a growing consensus of political scientists, demographers and strategists, the near-stalemate of 2000 — which produced a virtual tie for the White House, a 50-50 Senate and a narrow Republican edge in the House — was no accident.

This split is nurtured by the marketing efforts of the major parties, which increasingly pinpoint messages to certain demographic groups, rather than seeking broadly appealing new themes.

It is reinforced by technology, geography and strategy. And now it is driving the presidential campaign and explains why many experts anticipate a particularly divisive election.

Series in The Times: America's political divide Today: What the division is, where it came from, how it has deepened and what it might mean. Tomorrow: A family portrait from the home district of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Wednesday: A family portrait from the San Francisco neighborhood of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Political scientists and practitioners often speak of "Red-Blue America," evoking maps of the 2000 election returns (red for Republican, blue for Democrat). The phrase is used so loosely that it has spawned a rival pundit class devoted to knocking down the idea's oversimplifications.

It's useful to examine the red-blue division: what it is, where it came from, how it has deepened and what it might mean.

Hans Noel, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote a paper called "The Road to Red and Blue America." In an interview, he said, "Most people say they are 'moderate,' but in fact the country is polarized around strong conservative and liberal positions."

For the first time in generations, he said, those philosophical lines correspond to party lines. The once-hardy species of conservative Democrats — so numerous in the 1980s they had a name: "Reagan Democrats" — now is on the endangered list, along with the liberal "Rockefeller Republicans."

"It has taken 40 or 50 years to work itself out, but the ideological division in America — which is not new — is now lined up with the party division," Noel said.

At the same time, more and more Americans in a highly mobile society are choosing to live among like-minded people.

University of Maryland political demographer James Gimpel has documented the rise of a "patchwork nation," in which political like attracts like, and ideologically diverse communities are giving way to same-thinking islands.

A recent analysis sponsored by the Austin American-Statesman, comparing the photo-finish elections of 1976 and 2000, made this clear. While the nationwide results were extremely close, nearly twice as many voters now live in counties where one candidate or the other won by a landslide.

Person by person, family by family, America is engaging in voluntary political segregation.

As John Kenneth White, author of "The Values Divide," noted in an interview, "The reds get redder, and blues get bluer."

This reality already is visible in the presidential campaign. Kerry's supporters attack President Bush with the familiar red stereotypes. He is, according to them, ignorant, belligerent, a cowboy, a religious zealot.

Likewise, Bush supporters brand the Massachusetts senator with classic Blue terms such as elitist, lacking conviction and unpatriotic.

Onto those stereotypes the campaigns have begun layering issues well-known for firing up the red and blue camps: taxes, gay rights, abortion and the United Nations, to name a few.

Some speeches may pay homage to broad, unifying themes; but the campaign day to day seems intended to deepen, not erase, the rift. This suggests candidates resigned to a tight finish.

Twenty years ago, President Reagan swept 49 states in his re-election landslide. Today, the sheer number of voters who already tell pollsters they will not consider voting for Bush suggests how difficult it would be to win that sort of broad mandate.

Instead, strategists for Bush and Kerry are focused on a short list of hard-fought states.

As it becomes more difficult to reach across the party line, campaigns are devoting more energy to firing up their hard-core supporters.

For voters in the middle, this election may aggravate their feeling that politics no longer speaks to them, that it has become a dialogue of the deaf, a rant of uncompromising extremes.

Finally, because the red-blue divide so often follows very personal values — matters of philosophy, spirituality, morals and taste — the November election appears primed to leave the losing faction not only disappointed, but angry.

There's a reason why the past two presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have driven their opposition into fits of loathing: Politics in red-blue America is less the art of compromise than a clash of cultures.

Tomorrow's Close-up: Red country — A family in Sugar Land, Texas.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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