Four miles to the southeast there stretches a different
Washington. More than one-third of the people live in poverty.
Close to half the young children are overweight. Fewer than half
the adults work. The rate of violent crime is more than 10 times
that of the leafy streets of my neighborhood. Measured by money
income, Washington qualifies as one the most unequal cities in
the United States. Yet these two very different halves of a
single city do share at least one thing. They vote the same way:
Democratic. And in this, we are not alone. As a general rule,
the more unequal a place is, the more Democratic; the more
equal, the more Republican. The gap between rich and poor in
Washington is nearly twice as great as in strongly Republican
Charlotte, N.C.; and more than twice as great as in Republican-
leaning Phoenix, Fort Worth, Indianapolis and Anaheim. My fellow
conservatives and Republicans have tended not to worry very much
about the widening of income inequalities. As long as there
exists equality of opportu