This old Berkeley Hippie never once thought of this as a red state show, for all the reasons you quote Sheridan as saying. And it isn't like Dallas, because the characters are real cowboys, not just business men in cowboy hats. The glorification of Cowboying as an art and skill, and the beauty of the scenery put it in a completely different category from any soap opera. And when it does what a soap opera does it does it better, with memorable and complex characters and superb acting and writing.

I think a lot of people think it's conservative because it doesn't unambiguously condemn characters who do bad things. That kind of nuance is not part of the skill set of most people these days.