I look around this country and see a divide that borders on a civil war. I'm not the only one who feels that way.

Party lines, battle lines
Politics of 2003 look like politics of 1860

The red states get redder, the blue states get bluer, and the political map of the United States takes on the coloration of the Civil War.

Nobody, of course, is pulling out rifles or cannon. But Tuesday's election results in state and local contests suggest that an already politically divided country just got a little more so. We are divided by region and by race, but above all by party. It's been a long time since partisanship was as deep as it is now. Those states in the South, the Plains and the Rockies that the television networks painted red in 2000 when Bush carried them have become even more Republican. The Gore blue states largely continue their resistance.
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