Oh, they’re Tom Harkin left-wing Democrats. Don’t kid yourself.
I remember quite well how Meredith was the holy grail for people who were at the point where they had gotten a little real-world experience and wanted to become art directors or editors in order to escape 8 hours of board work or copy writing for some middling manufactory in one of the minor burgs. More often than not, they got another form of drudgery- albeit with a "hip" address, Des Moines' pretensions to culture and an all-pervasive, elitist corporate culture.
One part of the latter was an attitude akin to the apocryphal Pauline Kael comment about not knowing anyone who ever voted Republican, the difference being that they DID know people who voted Republican, but they'd learned to keep their mouths shut about it.
Mr. niteowl77