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Can a Democrat Love A Republican?
Can a Republican and a Democrat live happily ever after?
by Caroline Tiger
My boyfriend voted for Bush. Yes, for Bush. And he’d vote for him again if our Constitution allowed it.
Now let me duck while you spit at me. No, please go ahead. Really, I’m used to it. When this happens—the attacks, the spittle—I sometimes enlist a coping strategy. I tune out and think back to when I discovered that J was one of Them.
When we met three years ago at a New Year’s Eve party, politics never came up. We flirted, and after midnight we made out in the coatroom. The next day he called to ask me out. I agreed to brunch, but I told him there was little chance we’d date. I was seeing someone else (he was out of town, okay?), and J was in school in D.C., two hours by train from Philadelphia. The last thing I wanted was another long-distance relationship. I’d already been through two.
So at brunch when he told me he was Republican, I didn’t think about it in terms of would I or wouldn’t I? My immediate response was, “Pro-life?” If his answer had been yes, I’d have lost my appetite—and left. But it was no. So I kept eating.
A few months later, the guy I’d been dating was out of the picture, and J and I started the torturous and by now familiar grind of the long-distance relationship—nightly phone calls, and as many flirty e-mails as a hardworking law student and a procrastination-prone freelance writer could manage.
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1 karri // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:33 pm
i guess i’m more republican, but he is more democrat, but i stand corrected b/c he doesn’t like to associate w/ either party. its more a thing about humananity
2 karri // Mar 2, 2008 at 11:30 pm
my situation is the opposite. while i’m more a moderate, my b/f is an extreme liberal–i love him, but it drives me nuts! i want to make it work, but i don’t know how without these things getting in the way…any suggestions??
3 Politically Incorrect // Feb 25, 2008 at 1:04 pm
[…] out what Tango had to say, as well as a recent Modern Love clip from the New York Times. Post Comment […]
4 Sue // Feb 1, 2008 at 10:44 am
My husband and I have been married 42 years–he, a registered Republican and me, a registered Democrat. The reason we have different parties represented is to vote for the “Person” representing that party, NOT THE “PARTY”. At least that is what we were taught. Respect for one another and a vote for the “person”. Loyalty and respect for the “President” of our Country no matter who they are; “Patriotism”, not “Partisonship”. Clearly I am older than you, but I do want to make a comment about pro-choice. Where would you be if a choice was deliberately made when you were conceived?
5 Larry // Jan 15, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Sarah, you couldn’t be more right. Almost all my friends on the left are not capable of having a calm discourse over political differences. They get red-faced almost immediately when I tell them that I mostly agree with the right. And I have found that they get even angrier when I stay focused and explain my positions without the theatrics! It’s almost comical.
I am lucky to have found and married a woman who isn’t glued to any kind of ideology. She has, and has taught me, the ability to see the frauds on both sides of the argument.
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