It's not often, but sometimes when at a party or at a club or something, I'll look around, take deep breath and say, "I'll bet I'm the only one in the room who voted for Bush."

Most of the time my companion, whoever it might be, will agree, call me a right-wing fascist whack-job and then mug me, but every now again I'll be shocked by an admission that in fact they too voted for the president. Well, perhaps "admit" isn't the right word because that implies some kind of ethical malfeasance and no Republican I know regrets voting for the man who heads the party. Although more than a few of us lament at the obscene amount of pork-barrel spending and I know I rolled my eyes over the whole Teri Schiavo thing, but for the most part we Republicans are proud of the choices the President has made. So when I said "admit" perhaps I should have said "reveal." Because even in a town as Democratic as Chicago, no one really knows who anyone votes for. Presumably.

Nevertheless, of America's five largest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) Chicago voted most overwhelmingly for Kerry in the last election. And with many of those voters still fuming over Florida or Ohio or Lewis Libby or whatever, the odds don't bode well for Republicans seeking to make friends at off Loop wine and cheese parties. Such was the case last Sunday when I joined a friend of mine at a little get together at her boss's condo on west Randolph St.  A Republican knows he's in trouble when there are no less than three ATM machines inside any building's lobby. The two Ira Glass wannabes congregating in the elevator didn't bode well either. I think one of them may have been drinking a latte.  

The condo was as expected. Bloated, Lichtenstein knock-offs, black and pistachio colored walls painted just sloppily enough to look ambivalently mod. Hard wood floors covered with plaid carpeting, exposed ductwork and two laptop computers completed the gentrification chic look they were no doubt going for. Okay, maybe that's a bit judgmental and harsh but whatever. I might care if it looked as if these so-called "progressives" (to take from Byron York) actually respected independence of thought and political recalcitrance. They don't though, and they quickly let me know it.

Things devolved in the usual way: a comment here, a rebuttal there a slightly raised voice somewhere in the middle. Actually, I'd like it known that I was very good for the bulk of the conversation and tried desperately to steer things towards things we can all agree to hate, like "Daisy Does America."

You're all going to have to forgive me on this one, because you see, I had very little choice in the matter. Something kind of snaps in my brain when I hear people exploiting tragedy for political gain—it seems so positively inimical to everything intellectual discourse is supposed to represent.  How anyone can feel justified blaming the recent mine tragedies on the President or the Republican parties is certainly beyond my grasp. I'm not going to go into what was said, I'm sure most of you can take a pretty educated guess.  The conversation ended abruptly when the host's wife, a skinny girl from Portland, threw down her fork and declared that all Republicans "are monsters," and that should all just move to Mississippi and secede. Oh, and I think she also said something about "misogynist, war-mongers," but that may have just been the brie talking.

After about half an hour of awkward chewing and few feeble attempts at interpretive dance (the kind of which Rufus Wainright so aptly lends), we eventually started talking about more import things like finding out how much everybody makes and then feeling the appropriate level of superiority/inferiority.  (Kidding! If anyone of them read that they'd start waxing dyspeptic about capitalism or globalization or something like that. All while wearing Abercrombie & Fitch's newest, I might add.) I think we all realized how cartoony we'd become and how easily we fell into the Bill Maher/Rush Limbaugh claptraps that keep the blogosphere in business. Although there were no "hey, I like John McCain too," moments, it's a pretty safe bet that most of us understood the faux pas we made; in tact, if nothing else.  

As I've mentioned on this site before, I'm moderate, even left-leaning on most social issues and I know that most people at that party wouldn't want to live in some Scandinavian-esque welfare state. One of them even gripped about her property taxes.

I know it's a cliché by now, but seriously, don't talk politics at social functions. Nothing good will ever come of it. Except in this case when the host's wife gave me a bottle of Shiraz as a token of good will. I'm saving it for Molly Ivins.