Red/Blue Generalizations revisited. Kevin Drum responds to the PhiliMag article mentioned about three posts below. From this, you'll remember, I worried about this red/blue generalization--and the stereotypes that it feeds: somehow, red-state genuine, like a rock, brush clearers are real Americans; and latte drinkers are not.
(of course, that's a generalization of my own of others views....and on and on. BUT, is there not a strategy for politicians to present themselves in that former group. Proof: how many politicians have visited a coffee shop to sit down with an english professor for a photo op? Conversely, how many have stepped into the two dollar plate cafeteria with brown working coat draped over shoulders to converse with employees from Walmart? What's my point? I wonder why this latter group is the one politically neccessary to connect with? If it is because politicians almost always have to convince voters that they can connect with middle America, because most all politicians are elite in fact [went to grad school and have high paying jobs]- then I can buy it. BUT, if the photo ops are an attempt to glean from this 'look' the notion that the politician is genuine, like, supposedly, Betty from Walmart...I don't approve.)

Anyway, here's Drum's response to the article. Very much along the lines of what Mike says in his comments. Some grafs:

Look, I don't know if Brooks played fast and loose with the facts in Franklin County, PA, or not. But surely it's noncontroversial that, say, the average resident of the midwest really does have different values and different interests than urban coastal dwellers? And that popular magazine writers frequently overplay those differences in an effort to write engaging copy? This strikes me as something less than shocking.

So while it may be true that Brooks sometimes strains too hard to make his points, I suspect Issenberg is straining just as hard. After all, even in strongly Red counties you'll find plenty of liberals and and in strongly Blue counties you'll find plenty of conservatives. (Go to a party here in heavily Republican Orange County, for example, and four out of ten people you meet will nonetheless be Democrats. And every one of us will make the same lame joke about how happy we are to finally meet another one.)

If Brooks' generalizations are wrong, that's fine. Skewer away. But finding exceptions to Brooks' generalizations is both trivial and pedantic, especially when Issenberg admits multiple times that Brooks really does have a point. I've been pretty unimpressed with Brooks' New York Times columns so far, but this time I have a feeling I'm on his side: Issenberg just didn't get the joke. Lighten up.