CFR note: After reading a few initial comments I realized I was confusing people by using the "Rep" to mean Republican but lots of you took it to mean "Representative." Sorry for the confusion. I fixed it now.
I've been thinking about this Red State/Blue State thing, and tying that to the "welfare state" argument that red states get more in federal aid relative to taxes while blue states get less.
But here's my new thought on this: we can turn this into a wedge issue by turning the reps on each other. How?
Tell the Red State Republicans that it's the Blue State Republicans, not the Dems that are the problem.
After all, things are tough in a lot of those midwestern states. They need that aid. And liberals/progressives know that. We want to help them, and we know that if we cut taxes it would hurt those red states more than the blue states.
But the Blue State Republicans are the ones who want to hurt them by driving up the deficit which will force the government to cut programs (which again, go more to red states than blue).
If we can make it a Red Republican versus Blue Republican, then I think we can make the case that Dems are really the ones who understand what they're going through while the Blue State Republicans are effectively giving them the finger.
Okay, that's it. What did I miss and where are the holes in this theory?