Fence Post.(News)(Letter to the Editor)

0 Comments | Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), July, 2005

The great divide on the Fourth of July The great divide that separates the political parties grows larger every day. But is this rift due to equal and opposite retreats from the center of the aisle by both sides? I think not. I was raised in a dyed-in-the-wool Democratic family on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago.

My Catholic grade school and high school education seemed in perfect harmony with my political identity as a Democrat and later as an independent. After graduating college, getting a job, taking a wife, buying a home and then starting a family (all in proper order), I found myself voting for more Republican candidates, and now that my oldest is in college, I find myself a staunch Republican. Yet, the values instilled in me by my parents and...