Few but presidential candidates have ever had the chance to wind their way across the country on a door-knocking, hand-shaking, ear-bending adventure to put their finger on America’s political pulse. Somewhere in between the traditions of Alexis de Tocqueville and the modern cross-country campaign tour, I am working my way from New York City to San Francisco absorbing the vastness of the land and the subtlety of the changes in the landscape, physical and political. Hunting, kissing babies, and eating chili are involved where appropriate.
Over the course of ten weeks, I am visiting the most ideologically extreme places in American political geography. In an effort to investigate the Red State/Blue State framework that seems to underpin our current political conversation, I am spending a week each in ten American counties: the four Reddest, the four Bluest, and for good measure two of the Purplest (i.e., the most narrowly divided). There I am interviewing anyone and everyone I can about politics—from mayors to mill workers, from game hunters to gays and lesbians, from truckers to treehuggers. When possible, I am also interviewing national figures to gain the benefit of a national perspective. I will use the transcripts and recordings from these interviews to create a play about the nature of American political dialogue and its relationship to the places we live. Then, I will attempt to stage it.
For my purposes, the Reddest and Bluest counties are those with the widest victory margins in the 2004 presidential election—when the idea of a red/blue divide seems to have settled into common wisdom. In my interviews, I will seek to discover what binds communities together in America’s most politically homogeneous places, how the people who reside in them see themselves within our political landscape, and how they feel about the connection between the places they live and the rest of the country. I am big on the premise that good listening is at the heart of acting, so I will pay extremely close attention to the way people speak, stutter, pause, swear, er, um, and uh, because those moments where normal speaking rhythm is broken are the moments where true character is revealed.
In an age increasingly dominated by the excerpting and distillation of ideas—through sound bytes, video clips, talking points—I’d like to find out what kind of conversation is possible when politics is attended with an artistic ear and voice, when theater is invented with a journalistic tilt, and most of all, when people are given enough space to speak with complexity, nuance, reflection, and uncertainty. What happens when we broach politics with depth rather than speed?
WHERE ARE THEY?
RED
- Madison County, ID — 91.89% (R), 7.10% (D)
- Ochiltree County, TX — 91.97% (R), 7.90% (D)
- Glasscock County, TX — 91.56$ (R), 8.26% (D)
- Garfield County, MT — 90.08% (R), 7.94% (D)
BLUE
- Washington, DC — 9.34% (R), 89.18% (D)
- Shannon County, SD — 12.48% (R), 84.62% (D)
- San Francisco County, CA — 15.26% (R), 83.29% (D)
- Bronx County, NY — 16.53% (R), 82.80% (D)
PURPLE
- Monroe County, PA — 49.65% (R), 49.64% (D)
- Chatham County, NC — 49.73% (R), 49.75% (D)
Clear skies and open road ahead.
