CNN.com today lists 25 of the most dangerous cities and what are termed safest cities in the U.S. More precisely, the latter list comprises the 25 cities least dangerous as reflected in official crime statistics. There is no such thing as a safe city or a safe neighborhood, defined as a place where you do not have to stay alert about safety issues, and thinking the contrary just leads to more women victims going missing.

Setting that aside for now, these lists are still a handy reminder of the limitations of political advertising. Ads being aired for Gov. Robert Ehrlich, Republican of Maryland, are particularly superficial in blaming all ills of the city of Baltimore on his Democratic challenger, the Baltimore mayor, now ahead in the polls.

Spot after spot, generally with female voiceover, provides quick views of the poorest streets in Baltimore, accompanied by quick crime stats. The only thing they are more consistent about is not uttering the word Republican, the party that dare not speak its name. BTW, I rather doubt whether using female voices for some of the creepier ads is going to diminish the incidence of crimes against women.

Be that as it may, Baltimore, which used to be regarded as so naughty a port by the U.S. Navy that it would not allow its sailors to go ashore there, currently ranks twelfth out of 25 in the most dangerous list.

Assume for sake of argument that the fact that Baltimore is in Maryland, governed by Ehrlich the Impeachable, does not count.

Still, this kind of bookkeeping has got to be problematic. Looking at the 25 cities worst off in terms of crime, one finds six entries from Florida including Number 5 Miami Gardens and  Number 6 Orlando, two from Missouri including  Number 1 St. Louis, where a GWBush uncle dominates political circles, and three from California. Those would be the states of, respectively, GOP Governors Jeb Bush of Florida, Matt Blunt of Missouri, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Two cities on the list in New Jersey, two in Michigan, two in Tennessee, and one in Pennsylvania are under Democrat governors.

But 18 cities out of the worst 25 are all in states with Republican governors. This, be it noted, when the governors have a White House and a Congress of their own party.

Governor Schwarzenegger could point out that nine California cities also feature on the safest list. New Jersey and Michigan also have cities on the safer list. Florida and Missouri do not.

Genuine sociologists have documented for years that the crime rate tends to rise not with poverty, but with inequities that take lower income people out of the mainstream of life in society. If there were a simple correlation between low income and crime, it has been pointed out, the U.S. crime rate would have peaked during the Great Depression, when most people had low incomes. Instead, crime was relatively low during the FDR years, with most of the populace sharing a general sense of the necessity for pulling together.

We get little of that from our GOP officeholders now. Rather, every measure of income, assets, and household wealth indicates a growing and quickening inequity between the few at the top of the heap and the many at the bottom. Take a look at some of the properties for sale in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, stomping grounds of VP Cheney; or on Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, where Jeb Bush’s supporters hang; or in Greenwich, CT, neighborhood of GWBush uncle Jonathan, formerly of Riggs Bank.  Meanwhile, the middle class is being tilled like an overworked field for the value that it, unlike the highest net worth individuals, corporations and politically connected LLCs, lacks the means and the lobbying to protect.

The revenues, of course, go to the falsely named war on terror, the biggest boondoggle since the Pyramids and the single biggest means of transferring wealth to the wealthy along with federally funded flood insurance, federal funding to stopgap inadequate pension funds, and federal bailouts of the railroad companies, the savings and loans, and the airlines. Also of course, the transferrers continue to vocalize about crime even while diverting every possible resource away from genuine public health and public safety issues.