A Blue City (Disconsolate, Even) Bewildered by a Red America

Striking a characteristic New York pose near Lincoln Center yesterday, Beverly Camhe clutched three morning newspapers to her chest while balancing a large latte and talked about how disconsolate she was to realize that not only had her candidate, John Kerry, lost but that she and her city were so out of step with the rest of the country.

"Do you know how I described New York to my European friends?" she said. "New York is an island off the coast of Europe."

Like Ms. Camhe, a film producer, three of every four voters in New York City gave Mr. Kerry their vote, a starkly different choice from the rest of the nation. So they awoke yesterday with something of a woozy existential hangover and had to confront once again how much of a 51st State they are, different in their sensibilities, lifestyles and polyglot texture from most of America. The election seemed to reverse the perspective of the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon, with much of the land mass of America now in the foreground and New York a tiny, distant and irrelevant dot.

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' "

City residents talked about this chasm between outlooks with characteristic New York bluntness.

Dr. Joseph, a bearded, broad-shouldered man with silken gray hair, was sharing coffee and cigarettes with his fellow dog walker, Roberta Kimmel Cohn, at an outdoor table outside the hole-in-the-wall Breadsoul Cafe near Lincoln Center. The site was almost a cliché corner of cosmopolitan Manhattan, with a newsstand next door selling French and Italian newspapers and, a bit farther down, the Lincoln Plaza theater showing foreign movies.

"I'm saddened by what I feel is the obtuseness and shortsightedness of a good part of the country - the heartland," Dr. Joseph said. "This kind of redneck, shoot-from-the-hip mentality and a very concrete interpretation of religion is prevalent in Bush country - in the heartland."

"New Yorkers are more sophisticated and at a level of consciousness where we realize we have to think of globalization, of one mankind, that what's going to injure masses of people is not good for us," he said.

His friend, Ms. Cohn, a native of Wisconsin who deals in art, contended that New Yorkers were not as fooled by Mr. Bush's statements as other Americans might be. "New Yorkers are savvy," she said. "We have street smarts. Whereas people in the Midwest are more influenced by what their friends say."

"They're very 1950's," she said of Midwesterners. "When I go back there, I feel I'm in a time warp."

Dr. Joseph acknowledged that such attitudes could feed into the perception that New Yorkers are cultural elitists, but he didn't apologize for it.

"People who are more competitive and proficient at what they do tend to gravitate toward cities," he said.

Like those in the rest of the country, New Yorkers stayed up late watching the results, and some went to bed with a glimmer of hope that Mr. Kerry might yet find victory in some fortuitous combination of battleground states. But they awoke to reality. Some politically conscious children were disheartened - or sleepy - enough to ask parents if they could stay home. But even grownups were unnerved.

"To paraphrase our current president, I'm in shock and awe," said Keithe Sales, a 58-year-old former publishing administrator walking a dog near Central Park. He said he and friends shared a feeling of "disempowerment" as a result of the country's choice of President Bush. "There is a feeling of 'What do I have to do to get this man out of office?'''

In downtown Brooklyn, J. J. Murphy, 34, a teacher, said that Mr. Kerry's loss underscored the geographic divide between the Northeast and the rest of the country. He harked back to Reconstruction to help explain his point.

"One thing Clinton and Gore had going for them was they were from the South," he said. "There's a lot of resentment toward the Northeast carpetbagger stereotype, and Kerry fit right in to that."

Mr. Murphy said he understood why Mr. Bush appealed to Southerners in a way that he did not appeal to New Yorkers.

"Even though Bush isn't one of them - he's a son of privilege - he comes off as just a good old boy," Mr. Murphy said.

Pondering the disparity, Bret Adams, a 33-year-old computer network administrator in Rego Park, Queens, said, "I think a lot of the country sees New York as a wild and crazy place, where these things like the war protests happen."

Ms. Camhe, the film producer, frequents Elaine's restaurant with friends and spends many mornings on a bench in Central Park talking politics with homeless people with whom she's become acquainted. She spent part of Tuesday knocking on doors in Pennsylvania to rustle up Kerry votes then returned to Manhattan to attend an election-night party thrown by Miramax's chairman, Harvey Weinstein, at The Palm. Ms. Camhe was also up much of the night talking to a son in California who was depressed at the election results.

When it became clear yesterday morning that the outlook for a Kerry squeaker was a mirage, she was unable to eat breakfast. Her doorman on Central Park West gave her a consoling hug. Then a friend buying coffee along with her said she had just heard a report on television that Mr. Kerry had conceded and tears welled in Ms. Camhe's eyes.

Ms. Camhe explained the habits and beliefs of those dwelling in the heartland like an anthropologist.

"What's different about New York City is it tends to bring people together and so we can't ignore each others' dreams and values and it creates a much more inclusive consciousness," she said. "When you're in a more isolated environment, you're more susceptible to some ideology that's imposed on you."

As an example, Ms. Camhe offered the different attitudes New Yorkers may have about social issues like gay marriage.

"We live in this marvelous diversity where we actually have gay neighbors," she said. "They're not some vilified unknown. They're our neighbors."

"If the heartland feels so alienated from us, then it behooves us to wrap our arms around the heartland," she said. "We need to bring our way of life, which is honoring diversity and having compassion for people with different lifestyles, on a trip around the country."

Well thank you much for those kind words. As to the smart remark, well, I am from the middle dirt too so I must agree that we come from tougher stock. But then there is the problem of bleed over by those today who can merely fly into O'Hare . . . hah. Or was it the navel gazing, hee hee (sorry, not sophisticated enough to be adept at 'smiles' - am I proving the liberals point . . . I doubt it).

Seriously, I have watched for some time the growing arrogance of the far left and am very glad to see that the fly over part of the country handed them their hat (with head still attached). And I am overjoyed to see a reinvigorated George Bush yesterday at the press conference - we have cut our lion's chain and loosed him upon the earth . . . and I am not talking all that figuratively there.

But then I do believe that is why 'character', which all the pundits are so befuddled about, was the key - we know that we will never know all that is involved in all of these situations so we know that we must send someone with good moral fibre to deal with them, someone who we believe will act as we would had we the same information. We know that rhodes scholars don't do that and we know that Internet inventors don't do that, and no amount of hollywierdos, lying media dirtbags, megalomaniac billionaires or creepy intelligentsia will convince us otherwise. We know that once we cut the leash we will be very unlikely to rein in the lion . . . and there better be a decent person there. I am confident that George is that person.

That used to be the media's job regardless of their preferences . . . dan . . . Well, we will take over if you cannot do your job (though I must admit to being slightly out of step as I do not wear pajamas . . . maybe a nice set of boxers but that's about it . . .)

CrazyIvan, thanks again for the kind words and the encouragement - posting here is fairly intimidating. I too am giddy from the election still, but am trying to focus on the hard work ahead, though I think the battle lines have shifted a bit - I now see one of our main battles as against the media elite who will seek to impose their 'enlightened' self-importance upon us and this administration. The dems can now only squeal from the cheap seats that they are being ignored - well we showed them that they represent . . . not the mainstream . . . and though as a basic tenet of conservatived thought, we will of course consider them (more than they would ever consider us), they have very little purchase upon which to stand and are themselves beginning to grasp the need to change (just watch (and enjoy) the very far left howl about that - I can hear the 'selling out' screams now . . .). Yet the media can still do the damage - heck, local news devoted more time the other night to the unimpressive anti-Bush rally than to George's acceptance speech . . . by a factor of about 5 . . . go figure.

As to unity, well that is a two way street - we can reach out to them but they have to want to rejoin the mainstream of America or they will be the ones who have 'disenfranchised' themselves. I am sure that many dems will (and have) but there will always be a bevy of haters on the far left and at that point I will say goodbye and good riddance to them - hatred is not and can never be a tool for political gain in a democracy - period. And I am ashamed of democratic party for trying to encourage and actually cultivate it - the shame. But then their creedo these last many years is that the end justifies the means - they got what they deserved finally.

Sorry for the mistakes in that first post (and the ones I will make from now on too) - still getting used to the format. And again, thanks for those very kind words but as far as inspiring anyone, if a smart-aleck remark inspired me to write a decent post then keep 'em coming. Personally, I would simply be happy to stand in this crowd and be counted with all of you. Best regards . . .

Fun with Google:

Many of the female guests were taking off their heels, trekking through the mud, and washing off their feet in puddles which filled the lawn and roadside. Among the star-studded crowd were Kathleen Turner, James Lipton, Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, Robin Duke, of the DNC Finance Committee, and her brother-in-law Tony Duke, founder of Boys and Girls Harbor, Russell Simmons, Cathy Jones, who resembles Star Jones, and appears in Danny DeVito's latest movie, "Original Gangster Bitch," Faith Popcorn, Congressman Tim Bishop, East Hampton Mayor Paul Rickenback, North Haven Deputy Mayor Fred Stelle, and Beverly Camhe, a film producer on the host committee. Peggy Kerry, John Kerry's sister, and her husband George Kaler, of East Hampton, were also present.

Kerry in the Hamptons

I'm just shocked that this woman and her friends feel this way...I wonder whether the author of this piece is a personal friend of Ms. Camle's?

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