Why doesn't this work?

Dave Barry invites us to laugh at the sterotypes each side in the "Red State/Blue State" divide have of each other, as a way of healing our national division.

It sounds like a winner. The trouble is that it doesn't work. This witty column by a witty man yields no catharsis of laughter and embarassed self-recognition among we who sterotype. I wonder whether it's because Americans- myself included- tend to accept those stereotypes of "the enemy" at some level so deep that we have trouble accepting that stereotypes is what they really are.