When I sat down and began reading Ben Cady's column ("Red and blue fallacy," Jan. 26), I thought it was the editorial I was waiting for. As a member of the Republican Party I frequently feel misunderstood and misrepresented in the face of the pieces that typically fill the Opinion page.
Then I read further. No one will argue with the fact you pointed out that members of the right may have painted the left as different from themselves. Unfortunately enough, that's politics today. We all saw over the last presidential race from both parties that politics has become less about how big one candidate is but about how small he can make his opponent. Did you honestly mean to imply that the only partisan misrepresentations we saw in the last year came from the right?
You said it yourself in the beginning of your article - describing this part of "Red America" as "the mysterious land between coasts, full of guns, rebel flags, Wal-Marts and Bush voters." You call Jennifer the model of your "Red America stereotype" before conceding that she shares some of your social views.
It comes down to this. You want the conservative right to separate the name-callers of left from the rest of the intelligent and reasonable Democrats, and after your eye-opening trip to the South it should be no surprise to you that most Republicans want the same. No one will deny that the Republican Party has their share of mudslingers, but you sink to hypocrisy and profoundly disrespect Jennifer, the southerners who were gracious enough to share their meal with you, and the majority of "Red America" by finger pointing in precisely the manner you yourself object to. You profess a greater understanding for the Bush voters of the heartland and yet you carelessly throw Jennifer and the rest of conservative America into a blanket category with the few Republicans who you claim "have made urban, coastal, secular and Democratic America into an enemy." You claim to wish to bridge the chasm between Red and Blue America but you only widen the gap by calling to the left to "stop letting the right exploit the two-culture myth". Bottom line? Though "Red and Blue fallacy" may have been an attempt to "come up with ideas that transcend" partisan lines, it's clearly just the latest part of the problem.
