Bush Country

By James Romberger

The Villager asked Lower East Side artist and cartoonist James Romberger for his take on the red state/blue state divide in the presidential election. Romberger drew disasters occurring on the West and East Coasts — that’s Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger trying to rescue Julia Roberts on the left as Steven Spielberg films it all — think “media elite” — as John Kerry reports for duty on his surfboard. In New York, the liberal elite are in a tough position. Meanwhile, in the heartland, the president and his posse roam, uncaring about the coasts’ fate — as a male and female G.I. embrace — while in Texas, Vice President Cheney pops up from a secure location, and in Florida, Governor Jeb Bush savors the victory. Did the alien vote in Roswell help Kerry in his only Southwestern win? In Gitmo, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld holds down the fort. Explained Romberger: “The two sides of the country could go to hell — and the rest of them wouldn’t care. The Bush administration likes us to think there’s a bunker mentality in the middle of America regarding those of us on the edges, who are most at risk.” Romberger and his wife, Marguerite, founded Ground Zero, one of the first East Village art galleries. His pastels of East Village scenes are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.