This is funny. We were talking here about a related subject a few days ago. Not book stores specifically, but...
Below the Beltway
By Gene Weingarten
Sunday, January 21, 2001 ; Page W03
Now that we have a new president, I think we can all agree that this is a time for
healing.
But First . . .
I've been staring at a map for several hours now: It breaks down the presidential
vote county by county for the entire country,and it leads to a certain scientific
observation about the nature of George W. Bush's victory. Some of you may find this
to be an uncharitable observation, one that might even betray a subtle liberal-elite
media bias. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.
This was a victory for the hicks. A hicktory!
Here are the names of some counties that went heavily for Gore: New York County,
N.Y.; Philadelphia County, Pa.; Los Angeles County, Calif.; Milwaukee County, Wis.;
Honolulu County, Hawaii; St. Louis County, Mo.
Here are the names of some counties that went heavily for Bush: Alfalfa County, Okla.;
Antelope County, Neb.; Tallapoosa County, Ala.; Ozark County, Mo.; Lumpkin County, Ga.;
Pottawatomie County, Kan; Yoakum County, Tex.
On this map, counties that voted for Bush are red; those for Gore are blue. The map
is basically a wash of red. This is because most of the Gore counties are
geographically small but densely populated; the Bush counties are, to put it mildly, not.
For example, Bush kicked Gore's butt in Elko County, Nev., which is (true fact) slightly
larger than Denmark. Elko County has nearly three people per square mile. I phoned
the Elko visitors bureau and learned that the main yearly local event is the "Man-Mule
Race," where a man races a mule 25 miles from Elko to Lamoille. There is also a
Festival of Trees.
Now I know I cannot dismiss all residents of rural areas as "hicks." A responsible
journalist can't make an unfair generalization like that. He has to first find a pretext.
So I decided to come up with a scientific yardstick of sophistication, some way I
could empirically gauge the degree to which an area consists of persons like me, as
opposed to persons like Goober Pyle, Gomer's less sophisticated brother. I decided
on "bookstores per capita."
Feeding this term into an Internet search engine, I discovered that the one place in
America with the most bookstores per capita is Madison, Wis. . . . Also, um, Tucson.
And Seattle. And Ann Arbor, Mich. And Charlottesville. And Ithaca, N.Y. And Portland,
Ore. And Boulder, Colo. (Most of these are official chamber-of-commerce-type claims
-- suggesting that, from an accuracy standpoint, chambers of commerce rank
somewhere between time-share telephone solicitors and National Park Service crowd
estimators.)
But my point is, Gore won every county that each of these bragging brie-and-brioche
cities is in.
Whereas he did not win Fergus Falls, Minn., in Otter Tail County.
Am I getting through here?
Everywhere on this map that you see a little island of blue in a sea of red, you find a
reason. All of cowpokey Nevada went for Bush except the one county that contains . . .
yep, Las Vegas. All of Idaho went robustly for Bush except for one seahorse-shaped
county in the south central part of the state. For some reason, Gore won Blaine County.
Why?
I telephoned Blaine County Commissioner Len Harlig. I phrased the question as
delicately as possible, knowing that local government leaders are often masters of
diplomacy, respectful of their neighbors. Why did Blaine alone go for Gore?
"It is because we are well-educated," Harlig said. His neighbors in adjoining counties,
he noted dryly, are largely involved in the profession of "resource extraction." Miners
and farmers, he means.
Blaine County, it turns out, is home to Sun Valley, the posh resort. A large percentage
of its residents, Harlig said, have moved there from places like San Francisco and
Chicago. For its 20,000 inhabitants, Blaine County provides several dance and
theatrical companies, four public libraries, and lots of bookstores, including one called
Iconoclast Books. Hicks? I think not.
Now, I know that this column is not quote unquote nice. And yes, I admit it is
theoretically possible to live in a rural area and be quite the sophisticate; I am certain
that much of the outraged mail I will be receiving from sputtering bumpkins will be
spelled and punctuated correctly. Still, it won't rattle me. One of the perils of being an
objective journalist is that one must occasionally deliver unpleasant truths to those
who will then unfairly accuse one of hostile stereotyping or intellectual dishonesty.
As this column was going to press, I found a news report about a bank robber who
forgot to bring a bag for his loot. That meant he had to stuff all the cash into his
pockets and socks, until it was bulging out. As he ran away, he left a mile-long trail of
bills. Within an hour he was tracked and apprehended.
Turns out this gentleman was a local feller, a native son of Inman, S.C. ("The Fresh
Peach Capital of the World").
Inman is in Spartanburg County.
Went for Bush, big time.
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