Metro vs. Retro Ads Explained

By: E&P Staff For the past few days, a mysterious series of ads has run in several large newspapers, including The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times, featuring large pictures simply labeled "Metro" and "Retro."

Michael Moore, solar windmills and John Kerry, for example, were labeled "Metro" while Mel Gibson, oil wells and George Bush were "Retro." The only other copy in the ads: a link to a Web site, retrovsmetro.org.

Now the mystery has ended with news that the ads (part of a $2 million campaign) are promoting a new book, on sale today only at amazon.com (or downloadable for free from the Web site) called "The Great Divide."

The money man behind all this (and one of four co-authors of the book) is John Sperling, an economist and businessman. He and the other authors take a kind of "red" and "blue" state approach to politics and culture in the country, arguing that the "Retro" states (mainly south and Great Plains) make up only 35% of the population and 29% of the tax revenues, so those in the rest of the country (i.e. Metro) should be able to gain more power if they play their cards right.

Sperling told The New York Times that he is a lifelong Democrat.