This city is not nearly as liberal or different as New Yorkers believe [View All]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2180650,00.html

New Yorkers like to think of their home town less as a city than as a nation unto itself. They refer to the country in which they reside as little more than a geographical accident of little relevance. "I don't live in America," they'll tell you. "I live in New York." It's not difficult to see why. New York is an impressive and distinctive global city. It moves like a disco without the music - the aficionados try to stick with the rhythm but so long as you're into it nobody much cares. For a European visitor it has more in common with London, Paris or Rome than it does with Phoenix, San Antonio or San Jose, which are among America's 10 largest cities.

Politically, the last seven years have made New Yorkers feel particularly estranged from their fellow Americans. With three quarters of them voting for John Kerry in 2004, they discuss what has been going on in the rest of the country as though Ohio and Florida were foreign states. In some ways, they almost pride themselves on being out of touch.

But judging by presidential primary races, New Yorkers might be disappointed to discover they are not quite as different as they would like to think. The frontrunners for both the Democratic and Republican nominations - Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani - both have their campaigns based here. Giuliani was the city's mayor from 1994 to 2001; since 2000 Clinton has been the senator for the state - a disparate, more conservative entity than the city, but the farther you are from the Hudson, the more that becomes a distinction without a difference. Even the possibility that they may face off against each other in 2008 raises some serious challenges to the conventional wisdom that has dominated American political thinking over the last seven years.

If Bush's victory illustrated a nation polarised between the heartlands and the coasts, how is it that two candidates most identified with the city that most symbolises one of those poles could hold such sway nationally? If values and morality were so central to Bush's victory, why are two anti-abortion, pro-gay candidates who are both lukewarm on guns and immigration control, doing so well from Iowa to South Carolina? In short, if New York is different, why are agendas and candidates that have proved so popular here doing so well elsewhere?