"Targeted by homegrown Democratic demagogues all too willing to tell them what they want to hear"

Stranger in a strange land. It's 22% to 75% red vs. blue here in Chelsea-by-the-Sea, Taxachusetts, identified by neighboroo as a "Democrat Stronghold."

We suspect it has to do with the working-class City of Chelsea's traditional pattern of welcoming generation after generation of politically naive, yearning-to-breathe-free immigrants -- mostly from south of the border and south and east of Constantinople these days -- targeted by homegrown Democratic demagogues all too willing to tell them what they want to hear. It was our own native son, Tip O'Neill, who famously declared that "All politics is local." It's the Taxachusetts way. At least we're in good company, with one of our all-time fave blogmates, New Yorker Barry Campbell's red-vs-blue spread of 16%-to-82% outdoing our own (see map above). Barry's the one -- always at the cutting edge -- who gave us the heads up. Head on over to neighboroo and type in your zip code to see how good or bad it is in your neck of the woods. Some, like Goomp's, are merely Democrat. Others, like Barry's and ours, are Democrat STRONGHOLDS. It almost makes us wonder whether we have been chosen by the Lord to fight the good fight. [There was a blogpost out there somewhere today . . . or maybe it was a "news" report . . . to the effect that some group of Christians -- possibly Catholics -- thought it would be a small band of true believers that would once again lead a benighted humanity out of the desert . . . Unfortunately, we haven't been able to relocate it. If we do, it will be posted here.] Update: Here's the source, a review of Cardinal Ratzinger's and Marcello Pera's Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam. More here.

The latest pre-emptive obituaries for our party of choice from our friends on the left side of the aisle and their useful idiots in the MSM recall these lines from metaphysical poet John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning":

As virtuous men pass mildly away, 
And whisper to their souls to go, 
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

Does Karl Rove know something we don't? Some of his sad friends do say "It's micro-targeting," and some say, "No."

Comments

[miss kelly]

That "small band" could be the "creative minority" that Pope Benedict has written about.

"Cardinal Ratzinger refuses to follow the German thinker Oswald Spengler, who argued that all civilizations are doomed to decline and die. He rather supports the British historian Arnold Toynbee, who claimed that societies are shaped by “creative minorities” who are also capable of renewing them.... Christians, and especially Catholics, are expected to recognize themselves as such a “creative minority” today."

http://www.crisismagazine.com/june2006/book1.htm

You'd count as one too, definitely.

[Sissy Willis]

Miss Kelly: The very one . . . I'm working on a post about it this very minute.

[hnav]

i have a feeling that 9-11 has diminished this politics is local thing...

these days, with the technology, information, networks, etc., the local focus has grown.

i don't doubt the individual candidate can overcome any partisan mindset...

but with mighty blogs like SISU, those who are not aware of the shared concerns of fellow Americans far away, are living in the past.

[Dave Schuler]

My neighborhood is “Very Democrat” but, since in my neighborhood a Democrat is an independent who wants his trash picked up, that doesn't mean a great deal.

[Gayle Miller]

I live in Ohio and the vituperation and viciousness of the campaign has wearied everyone I know on both sides of the spectrum. All we want is for the doggone thing to be OVER.

I do know that the RNC has been blanketing our part of the state with ads all of a sudden! Interesting strategy. The Dems have been spending obscene amounts of money shreiking all manner of probably-not-true charges at Republican incumbents, almost entirely unanswered and NOW, when they're almost out of money - here come the Republican ads. Much better production, not shrill, very crisp and to the point and, what's best of all, ubiquitous! And the Dems are short on money [and time] to respond - and of course, they're whining about it!