Painting the Town Red and Blue

Ordinarily I don’t knock on the doors of complete strangers asking if I can come in and watch the presidential debate on TV, but this was different.

I was in Pasadena, on a leafy street called California Terrace, where loyalties were clearly divided. One house had a Bush-Cheney sign out front, and the next-door neighbor had a Kerry-Edwards sign. Just down the way, I found a Kerry house sandwiched by Bush houses.

Forget the map of blue and red states. The nation’s political split can be found right here in Pasadena.

Do any of these people speak to each other? I wondered.

“We would never talk politics” with the neighbors, Dana Dewberry told me on the porch of the Kerry house that splits a pair of Bush neighbors. This particular election is more divisive than any she can recall, Dewberry said, glancing at the Bush signs as if they were weeds.

Why Kerry? I asked.

“We travel,” Dana Dewberry said. “I’m tired of getting flak from people around the world about what war-mongerers we are.”

By the good graces of several California Terrace residents, I arranged for a night of progressive debate-watching. I began at the home of Kristin and Bill Poulsen (Bush sign), who live next door to Donna and John DeFazio (Kerry sign).

“You want to go next door and watch the debate?” Republican Kristin asked, saying she had arranged for us to go to the Democratic DeFazios’.

Sounded very James Carville-Mary Matalin. And so we walked past the Bush sign, past the Kerry sign and into the DeFazio home. The husbands were at work.

I think it’s fair to say there was a bit of awkwardness as the debate began. Kristin broke the ice by saying she thought maybe it was better that they didn’t talk politics, for the sake of the friendship. Earlier, she had told me she listens to a lot of talk radio.

The DeFazios suspected the Poulsens were conservative, but it never came up in the two years they’ve shared a property line on this quaint stretch of easy street. Not until the DeFazios returned six months ago from a Kerry party and Kristin asked where they’d been to, all dressed up.

It wasn’t long before Johnny DeFazio, who’s in high school, planted a Kerry sign on the front lawn of the Republican Poulsens. Mr. Poulsen ripped it out and there’s been some good-natured ribbing on both sides ever since.

Maybe it’s a USC-UCLA thing, Donna DeFazio suggested. The Poulsens went to USC and so naturally they’re more conservative. Mr. DeFazio went to UCLA.

“I think we need a new hero,” Mrs. DeFazio said of Kerry.

Mrs. Poulsen appeared to be holding her breath.

Joe DeFazio, 13, wrote the first sentence of a school assignment: “As the debate goes on, people think Kerry’s way or Bush’s way is better, but I think they are both practically the same.”

Down the street I headed, knocking on the door of Michael and Wendy Vogler, who have a Bush sign and an American flag out front. One of their three daughters is named Reagan and another is Liberty, which tells you pretty much all you need to know.

“I believe President Bush has a vision for America and believes in his cause,” Mike Vogler, a Hollywood line producer, said as we watched the debate. “And I believe John Kerry has a vision for himself, and not for America.”

The difference for Wendy, who wavers between Republican and Libertarian, is taxes.

“That’s the bottom line,” she said, and Bush is her man.

Mike fumed that Kerry seems to put more stock in the United Nations than in the American presidency. And Wendy said when they attended the Dodgers Opening Day she was moved by the majesty of military jets flying overhead, the sight of the American flag and the spectacle of the national pastime.

When I mentioned that the Dewberrys, who live next door, were concerned about America’s image abroad, the Voglers became uncomfortable.

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” Mike said. “We travel too.”

“And,” Wendy picked up, “we’re proud to say we’re Americans.”

“Steve is a pacifist,” Mike said. “But we love everyone.”

It should be noted that Vogler and Dewberry children, although their parents are from different planets, call themselves best friends. Let the terrorists try to compete with this.

Next, it was the Dewberrys who took me in. Steve Dewberry, a worker’s comp attorney who was riveted to the TV, feared that Kerry wasn’t delivering the knockout punch Steve was rooting for.

“The Democrats talk about things in fuzzy gray ways,” Steve said. “Bush is just, ‘Let’s track ‘em down and kill ‘em.’ ”

As the president talked about terrorism, Steve said: “Bush is selling fear. He’s selling fear, but he created it.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” said wife Dana.

She waffles, Steve offered.

She generally considers herself Republican, Dana explained, an admission that nearly brought teenage daughter Annie leaping off the couch.

“I thought you were a Democrat,” she said to her mother in a grief-stricken tone.

Kerry is the lesser of two evils, Mrs. Dewberry told her daughter.

“Wasted words,” Mr. Dewberry said of a flowery Kerry debate line. “He needed to hit him hard, and he should have.”

The evening came to a quiet end on California Terrace in Pasadena, where democracy thrives. Let’s hope it holds out at least until the next block party.