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GUEST COMMENTARY
The New York Times' newest op-ed columnist, John Tierney, wrote the other day that "If you live in a blue-state stronghold, a coastal city where you can go 24 hours without meeting any Republicans, it's consolation to think of the red staters as an alien bunch of strait-laced Bible thumpers." He saw no need to explain "red state" or "blue state," since everyone knew what he meant. Nor was he referring to color; there are no green states or burnt orange. It's how we talk these days.
A few months ago the nightly news showed former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in Thailand surveying the devastation caused by December's Indian Ocean tsunami and speaking comfort to its victims. Mr. Bush wore a red polo shirt and Mr. Clinton a blue one.
Earlier, when Howard Dean accepted the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, he promised its members he would "pretty much live in the red states in the South and West for a while."
Everyone accepts not only that "red states" and "blue states" refer to those that sent Republicans and Democrats, respectively, to the Electoral College in 2004 but also that they represent attitudes, mind-sets and practices far beyond electoral politics.
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