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Pennsylvania radiates red truth vs. blue truth
Michael Tackett
Published September 19, 2004
As a colleague recently put it, in this presidential campaign there is red truth and there is blue truth. Red truth tells you that George W. Bush served honorably in the Air National Guard and that he is being targeted for a smear by a biased, left-leaning media, embodied by CBS News anchor Gunga Dan Rather.
Blue truth tells you that Bush got the coveted Guard slot through family clout and exploited his connections so that he never had to fulfill his obligations. As such, it tells you that the president has little credibility to send soldiers off to fight and die in Iraq.
The more we think we know about the Guard story, the less clear the story seems to be. Where you stand, as the diplomats used to say, depends upon where you sit.
In no way is that better illustrated than in the CBS interview with the 80-something former secretary to Bush's superior in the Texas Air National Guard. She says that she did not type the documents upon which CBS based its report last week suggesting that Bush was shirking duty and that he was being watched out for by friends in high places. But she also says that the thoughts contained in the documents were indeed those of the superior, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who has been dead for 20 years.
Never mind that the essence of both charges against Bush--preferential treatment and shirking of duty--were litigated the last time we had a presidential election.
In red truth-blue truth America, that doesn't matter. Each side's bias is validated.
Red-truth believers watch their politics on the Fox News Channel. Blue-truth believers watch it somewhere else. Blue truth can be told largely in big cities and near-in suburbs. Red truth lies mostly in the vast rural and exurban areas.
The red-truth-blue-truth divide can be seen in a number of parts of the country, but nowhere is it more visible right now than in battleground Pennsylvania.
A touch of Alabama
Democratic strategist James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between. It has ardent liberal Democrats in its larger cities and a diminishing but strong strain of conservative Democrats who live in the Lehigh Valley. It has working-class Democrats who worked the mines and mills of the southwestern part of the state. And it has moderates, particularly in the Philadelphia suburbs, who probably have the greatest difficulty digesting the simple notion of red and blue truth, who see the world and its issues with a purplish cast.
Pennsylvania is a place to look at the state of red truth and blue truth.
The most recent Keystone Poll, released Friday, found that President Bush leads Sen. Kerry 47 percent to 45 percent among registered voters and dead even at 49-49 for those the survey considers "likely voters."
Neither red truth nor blue truth is dominating.
It is a state that Kerry almost certainly has to win--Al Gore won by a surprisingly comfortable margin there in 2000. And whether Kerry can win will largely be a function of whether blue truth or red truth prevails.
Kerry is running strong in the areas where he needs to run strong. But Bush is running stronger than expected in the northwest and northeast parts of the state. He has energized his core supporters to a greater degree than Kerry, pounding home the notion of red truth.
"Bush is doing much better in rural outlying areas among Republicans," said Terry Madonna, director of the Keystone Poll and a professor at Franklin and Marshall College. "So the election is taking on a kind of strange configuration."
It could be that the power of red truth--stark clarity, black-and-white beliefs on issues--so far is stronger than the power of blue truth, which is subject to nuance and complicated answers to complicated questions.
Different ears, different issues
"You really have two different campaigns to two different audiences," Madonna said. "In Pennsylvania, the economy [a blue-truth, complicated issue] has receded from 32 percent to 20 percent as the most important issue as homeland security and the war on terrorism [a black-and-white issue] has gone from 20 percent to 26 percent. Kerry has done worse and Bush has done better."
Red truth believes that strength is standing up and offering a choice of "It's us versus them." Blue truth suggests that power has to be accompanied by deep thinking, alliance building and compromise.
Madonna's poll shows that people are supporting Bush because they see him as a strong leader and commander in chief and that those supporting Kerry believe he cares more "about people like you and me and the economy and health care."
At this point, the red truth is becoming more important in the Pennsylvania voters' minds, which may indeed leave the Kerry campaign blue.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
