If you haven’t already, check out Richard Rushfield’s column from today’s Slate. As a social experiment, Rushfield donned campaign gear and then infiltrated communities thick with the opposition. His experiences wearing Kerry regalia are tame, limited to a few irritated glances and a stalking incident that can’t quite be connected to the shirt. Venturing out into LA-LA-Liberal land wearing Bush gear, however, is quite a different story:

I sit down to eat. Dining nearby is a young girl who looks to be about 6-years-old; she gazes at my shirt with a look so forlorn, I expect to learn that Dick Cheney just stole her crayons. Her mother arrives and gives her a hug of consolation. The girl starts to talk, but I can only make out “Bush shirt,” which she says to her mother as she points my way. The mother turns and glares, shaking her head at me. I start to wonder what sort of person I am to inflict this on a poor child.

And I thought people only behaved this partisanly in Washington.