In the US' battle-scarred political landscape, there is only one thing on which Republicans and Democrats agree: that the country has never been so divided.
Even the world of dating has become polarized, as thousands of lovelorn Americans flock to Web sites exclusively for one party or the other. No one is buying the notion that opposites attract.
Out go typical first-date questions such as "what's your job" and "are you looking for a serious relationship?" In come chat-up lines like "what's your stance on abortion?" or "how do you feel about the Bush tax cuts?" In short, ideological compatibility is becoming more important than a gym-toned body or well-paid career.
And it's not just on the Internet. Dating is practically a national sport in America but as the battle for the White House rages politics has entered the game. Agony aunts are dealing with questions about how to cope with dating people with different politics. A recent episode of comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm had its lead character stop mid-seduction after noticing the woman he was grappling with on a couch had a picture of US President George W. Bush on her dressing table.
"You're a Republican?" asked Larry David in shock, then got up and left.
Like-minded souls
Certainly politics matters in the bedroom for Anthony Kreuger, a sales representative in Bellflower, a suburb of Los Angeles. Kreuger, 25, a Republican in the Democrat heartland of southern California, recently signed up with Republican-Singles.com, a Web site devoted to meeting like-minded souls.
"It is difficult to be a Republican around here. For me it is really important to have shared values. I don't want someone to be a mirror of my views but you need to have political stuff in common these days," Kreuger said.
But the same goes for the other side, too. Tony Sandoval, founder of RepublicanSingles, has also set up DemocraticSingles.com. Both sites were founded in the past six months and both have attracted hundreds of members. Sandoval said the election and the war in Iraq had created a market for people desperate not to end up in arguments with their potential dates.
"These are very contentious times. People want to date people with whom they share views," Sandoval said.
There is now a mini-boom in catering for singles keen to date their political bedfellows. Tom Swanson, a St. Louis-based Web designer, has created SingleRepublican.com, after his own search for a right-wing woman left him frustrated at being unable to screen dates for their political opinions.
"Necessity was the mother of invention," he said.
Liberal values
Other Web sites include Liberal-Hearts.com, which gained fame late last year by organizing a "Who wants to be a First Lady?" contest among its members for Dennis Kucinich, an outsider liberal candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination, who is a bachelor.
Then there is ConservativeMatch.com, whose members come from the right-wing end of the spectrum. A sample questionnaire on members' politics asks if they agree with such statements as "The homosexual lifestyle is immoral" and "Every law-abiding citizen should have the right to bear arms."
"Hundreds of people a day have been signing up and that is without a marketing campaign," said co-founder Brian Barcaro, who hopes to branch out into organizing singles events for its members.
It is a long way from the 1990s when romance was able to cross political barricades -- symbolized by the marriage of former US president Bill Clinton's political strategist James Carville and Mary Matalin, adviser to Republican Vice President Dick Cheney.
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