The question

ST. PAUL—The America here has no suffering middle class to speak of, just like the America in Denver barely sweats terrorist threats.

In Denver's America, George Bush is the president, he's a Republican, and almost everything is his fault. In St. Paul's America, liberals are running and ruining the country, and some guy named George makes a brief cameo from a video screen, never to be heard from again.

Americans in St. Paul worry about rising taxes and swelling welfare rolls; in Denver, they worry about global warming and people without health insurance. There are Iraq Wars in both places, but one is a rousing success and the other a colossal mistake.

John McCain and Barack Obama both accepted their parties' presidential nominations—McCain in St. Paul on Thursday, Obama in Denver the week before — with pledges to unite the country. But which country, exactly, would that be?

[From 2 Americas, a world apart -- chicagotribune.com]