by Joe Mitchell

An interesting hoax that has been floating about the world wide web as of late has been the story of one John Titor. Titor, the invention of a creative trekkie-type with way too much time on his hands, is a character who claims to have traveled back in time from 2036 to the present-day. The whole time travel angle itself is compelling stuff, but most fascinating about Titor's tale is his yarn of events taking place between our time and his. Most notably, there is a Civil War in the United States fought between Urbanites and Ruralites.

This Civil War breaks out shortly after the heated Presidential Election of 2004 when the U.S. government quickly devolves into a police state. Waco and Ruby Ridge-type incidents erupt on a weekly basis. Urban areas become controlled by government occupational forces. Anti-government survivalists take refuge in the countryside, fighting alongside the entrenched residents. The Rural forces eventually win by default when all the Urban areas are nuked by a resurrected Soviet Union. Of course, the very premise that the hopelessly splintered Soviets could reunite is the very making of busted guts. The odds of a Beatles reunion or Rolling Stones tour with Brian Jones are much higher.

Strange as such a prediction sounds on its face, the United States seems to be in the midst of such a Civil War already, though no guns or bombs have erupted yet. Despite all the endless hubbub of red state versus blue state that began polluting the air after the 2000 Election debacle, this country is not neatly divided state by state with blue progressive states and red conservative states. 

There are "two Americas."  However, one cannot lump entire states into either "Jesusland" or "The United States of Canada." The classification actually breaks down by county within the respective states. The blue counties tend to be urban and the red counties tend to be rural.

The county results map published in USA Today after the election is telling. One sees blue islands in seas of red throughout the country. Travis County (Austin), the Capitol of Texas, a notorious red state and the home of President Bush, is one such island, as is El Paso.

In California, a notoriously liberal state, one sees a blue strip on the urban coast holding back a red tide to the rural east. The rich farmland of the Central Valley, where the catchphrase "Valley Values" is big in Congressional and Legislative races, is solidly red with the exception of Sacramento County, the state's largest inland metropolitan area, and the margin there was thin. The Woodlands of the north and the bulwark of the Sierras all the way into Southern California are a veritable Rudolf's nose.

There are a few, though not surprising exceptions to the rule. 1) Dallas, 2) Houston, 3) San Antonio, 4) San Diego, 5) Salt Lake City, 6) Tulsa, and 7) Oklahoma City are red urban areas. These "red metros" tend to be either religiously conservative (1,5,7), have an oil-based economy (2,6), or a big military presence (3,4).

On the flipside of the anomalies, blue rural areas throughout the country tend to be either very wealthy (a bit surprising) or very poor in relation to the national average annual income of $22,000.

Two prime examples of the first group are Boulder and Pitkin counties in Colorado. Boulder, a progressive university county, sports an average income of $29,000. Pitken is the home of Aspen, the Hollywood of the Rockies. It's one of the wealthiest counties in the nation with an average annual income clocking in at over $40,000.

Among the second group are Imperial County, California ($13,000); Jefferson County, Texas ($17,000); and Corson County, South Dakota, a predominantly Native American county with an abysmal per capita income under $9,000. If you wish to locate the Native American lands in Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas, and Washington, look for blue outside of urban areas. If you wish to find the resorts of Colorado and California, do the same.

So where did the Democrats go wrong again in the predominantly urban versus rural electoral landscape? Simple. They are only talking to people in the extreme straits of our country- the effete limo-libs who make their homes in posh resort towns, the very poor just hoping to get a chance to make a decent living, and the snooty cosmo-urbanites who base their social calendar on art movies and the latest edition of their local libbie weekly rag. Of course, this last group includes most of the readers of this publication, and myself.

Pulling in the extremes is great if you want to win "pc points," but it's not going to win any elections. You've got to win the middle-class- the average Joes, the NASCAR dads. We members of the third group must get over our snobbery. We'll never be a majority and we'd better stop alienating the folks in the red counties with street theatre and protest marches, the very things the reddies, with much validity, see as elitist and mostly absurd. It's time to dismount our high horses and actually visit some of these red areas. Perhaps we can learn their language and figure out a way to win them over.

In the present landscape, the Gores and Kerrys of the world are doomed silver spooners. It's time for the Dems to get populist again. Have we forgotten who the last three Democratic presidents were? Johnson, Carter, and Clinton were all progressive populists from the South who knew how to woo the country as well as the city.

Will the next Southern Progressive Populist Democratic Presidential candidate please step forward so we can get back in the White House? Please! Excuse me, it's not you, Mr. Edwards.