Please sir, may I have some appropriations?

November 11, 2002

Northeast as Outsider, Begging for Scraps

With their capture of the Senate last Tuesday, Republicans will hold the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress for the first time in half a century (except for a few months early in 2001). At the same time, the Northeast has become the most reliably Democratic region of the country, a bit like a street waif in an old silent picture, nose plaintively pressed against the glass, hungrily watching someone else's party.

Is the country outside of the Northeast really as different as the politics might suggest?