You've Got A Friend In Pennsylvania

The Keystone State votes today.

It's kind of funny; a Pennsylvania native friend of mine despaired back in December that his state was going to have no say in the nomination process. I didn't really disagree with him at the time, but he probably regrets having said that after sitting through weeks of continuous media attention and an infinite loop of candidates' television commercials.

Supposedly Hillary Clinton is going to get the validation she needs to keep her campaign going today. The Obama campaign has had some difficulties in recent weeks and while it could easily have been worse, there are some uneasy feeling in the pit of some of our stomachs.

At this date it's hard to say much of anything about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or Bill Ayers, or that hasn't already been said by someone else dozens of times; I bring it up so no one chimes in and says I'm ignoring the elephants in the room or am part of the "Obama cult" that excuses all his shortcomings and amplifies those of Clinton and/or McCain. I'm not happy about everyone with whom Obama has associated himself, but I never expect to be happy with everyone who supports the same candidate for President that I do. I would have liked to have seen some more discretion on his part...but going to be that's part of the package when your preferred candidate isn't someone who has spent his entire life grooming himself for the White House. People with lifelong Presidential ambitions try to keep their distances from the Wrights of the world, and, for better and for worse, that's not quite Obama. What's more important to me is that I see no indication that Obama harbors black nationalist or anarcho-syndicalist views and that anyone who honestly believes that there's a chance he does probably wasn't a persuadable voter to begin with. I see no indication that the individuals who have caused the controversies in question would have any role in the formulation of any policy in a hypothetical Obama administration, and no indication that Obama has promised anything in terms of programs or policies toward them in exchange for their support.

And then there's the "elitism" question, which has given us the curious spectacle of a bunch of millionaire talking heads claiming blue-collar bonafides while attacking, in particular, Obama and his supporters as elitists.

It's definitely a sign of style-over-substance politics when people can, with a straight face, label "populist" can be applied to an administration which has presided over levels of wealth concentration in fewer and fewer hands without recent precedent, all led by a man who describes his "base" as the "haves and the have mores." All based on this notion of whom the average person would rather have a beer with - and the man doesn't even drink!

For whatever it's worth, here are the remarks that caused the controversy:

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

It's somewhat clumsily expressed, but it sounds a lot like the narrative, popularized by, among others, Thomas Frank, that's been much discussed in Democratic circles since 2004. When blue-collar white voters in the Rust Belt perceived that there was little or no difference between the two major parties regarding pocketbook and lunchpail issues, all that was left to vote on were cultural issues - abortion, school prayer, same-sex marriage, gun control, immigration. (Frank's book of course is about Kansas rather than the Rust Bust specifically, but his chapters dealing with Wichita and the Kansas City suburbs apply very well to places like Pennsylvania and Ohio.)
The conservative movement has been very skilled at tapping into these sorts of issues to create the well worn "red states" narrative that has served paid big political dividends for them.

You've heard it before. It usually mentions French wine and/or cheese, sometimes incorporating Italianate coffee-based beverages and Swedish auto manufacturers. It's further proof that people in this country define themselves and their peers far too much based on consumer products.

Going after Hollywood, Manhattan, and Berkeley has provided the movement with a handy replacement for the race-based appeals the GOP used to help turn the South solidly Republican but have now become something of a liability for them in more recent times. In the case of Obama, it's a convenient line of attack against him that scarcely discuss his race.

There is nothing even remotely proletarian about any of the three remaining serious candidates. Besides, I thought the American national founding myth was that there was no such thing as class.

Democrats have picked up on the Frank thesis and definitely altered their message in 2006 - they've essentially given up on federal gun control, have treaded more lightly on the abortion issue, and found a slate of candidates in many places (Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia is the exemplar) who were often for one reason or another - military record, neo-populist appeal, authentic regionalist appeal - tougher targets for standard-issue Republican attacks. Combine that with an unpopular administration pushing unpopular policies, and with a series of embarrassing and mostly Republican scandals on Capitol Hill, and it proved a winning combination.

It would have been far better if Obama had more clearly emphasized that it was the politicians turning their backs on the working-class voters all the while making empty promises and insincere platitudes were the ones who were at fault, rather than the voters, who were simply working with what was given to them. It would also have been a nice tactical shot aimed more squarely at the Clinton administration, many of whose signature accomplishments were actually Republican ideas. To say that voters to "cling" to something reminds too many of Linus van Pelt and his security blanket.

The ubiquity of Frank's narrative explains why there's been so much battling over NAFTA in the Democratic race this year despite trade with Canada and Mexico being a very small part of the reason for widespread American de-industrialization, and despite the widespread consensus that an attempt to turn back the clock at this time would not bring the lost jobs back. NAFTA has enormous symbolic value to those who saw it as the quinessential betrayal of American laborers, as the moment at which the Democrats became indistinguishable from the Republicans in their eyes regarding their interests. It's no accident that the Republicans took over both houses of Congress in the election following the NAFTA vote. One continuing problem with regards to NAFTA - originally sold to some doubters as a way to help reduce the incentives for Mexicans to become illegal immigrants, it in fact exacerbated the issue as the small-scale Mexican agricultural sector was stomped upon, leading many more farmers and farm workers to try to cross the border in such of economic opportunity.

Obama's tough talk on trade is an attempt for Obama to broaden his appeal within the party beyond his current twin bases of the black vote on one hand and the reformist wing of the Democratic Party - many of the same people who backed Howard Dean four years ago, or Bill Bradley four years before that - on the other. Hillary's following suit is, well, is a Clinton trademark, an attempt to co-opt a portion of the opposition. To the extent either is making promises he or she has no intention of keeping , they're part of the same problem they've been decrying.

All this, is of course, a typical politician's gambit, which is at odds with the Obama "new politics" brand label, one many of us find appealing. At the same time, I recognize that you've got to play some hardball to win; the good-government types weren't able to get Gary Hart, Bill Bradley, or Howard Dean to the White House.

And I'm fine with attacks on Obama based on issues like that. I'd rather talk about that than how well he bowls or how often he wears a flag lapel pin. Hillary doing a shot of Crown Royal is almost as funny as Barack Obama trying to bowl. And John McCain, whose been spared this thusfar because the media loves him and because the focus right now is on the Democrats, but given time I'm sure we could concoct a similar stupid human trick for him to perform.

From The Infield

We're getting closer to the finish line.

Voters in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont are going to the polls today. This primary season has taught us to expect the unexpected, but today if Barack Obama can triumph in the two bigger contests it will seriously undermine whatever argument Hillary Clinton has for remaining in the Democratic race.

Looking at what Hillary Clinton has left for argument in her favor, I found, via Matt Yglesias, someone at Huffington Post making this argument for Hillary Clinton based on her credibility regarding matters of national security. To hear this person tell it, Hillary Clinton can "stand toe-to-toe with John McCain on national security."

You often hear mainstream media outlets saying that Democrats lack credibility on national security issues.

But at this stage I don't want "credibility" on national security, at least not in the sense that term is commonly understood. The people who think that the way to be "credible" on national security is be hawkish, to give the defense industry and military infinite funding, and keep thinking of new ways to sell new foreign invasions and adventures, and consider these things important, have their party and their candidate already.

Even if I didn't think that this type of thinking was insane...Hillary can be as hawkish as she wants to be and she's not going to move those voters away from John McCain and the Republicans. Those among us who think this Iraq war was a good idea and want to see more like it have their man, a man who happens to believe in the Bush Iraq strategy more than Bush himself ever did.

Furthermore...when a Democrat seeks "credibility" on "national security" the way that John Kerry did and Hillary Clinton is trying to, that Democrat is fighting on Republican turf. John Kerry's veteran status didn't help him much, and neither did Al Gore's for that matter. Hillary's tough talk won't help her much either. As long as those are the ground rules, the Democrats are going to be the "wimp" party, the "defeatist" party. That so many of them decided to strategically capitulate concerning the original Iraq War authorization, and then signed on to an effort to lay the same sort of groundwork for a war with Iran, makes observers think that they are either a watered-down imitation of the Republicans or a band of insincere, pandering politicos who want to have it both ways - neither one of which is particularly attractive to voters.

If the party marginalizes voices saying something like "This war was a fool's errand, that wasted countless lives and resources, and damaged our credibility worldwide in such a way that those who praise it can scarcely be trusted concerning other foreign policy matters, and those who called for it in the first place should have known better" like a majority of Americans actually believe at this point, the party is in effect narrowing its appeal.

I prefer someone willing to stand up to the ceaseless din of the war drums. "before George Bush decided to invade Iraq, there was no such thing as al-Qaida in Iraq."

Not that I expect the American public to be swayed overnight - but there are 8 months between now and Election Day.

And there is yet life beyond Election Day; it is time for liberals and progressives, and the Democratic Party as a whole, to think more than one cycle ahead, something we haven't done much of in recent years. You can see that in the rightward drift - sometimes slow, sometimes abrupt - of the country's politics over the last generation plus, a drift that is the product of a deliberate and at least partially orchestrated campaign by the conservative movement to change the national conversation. Note that this is distinct from and a little different than simply winning elections. If you're deft enough and can exploit positive short-term trends, you can win an election or two, or achieve the occassional policy victory. Every so often you can win an argument or an election on the turf of the opposition - they will sometimes stumble or self-destruct through overreaching, infighting, or personal scandal, or sometimes your side will have someone of enormous skill to level the playing field somewhat. But that doesn't change the fact that you're fighting an uphill battle from the start, and that under those conditions you will lose more often than you win.

Given the spin coming from the Clinton camp about their campaign as a whole, it's clear to me that they're effectively treating this election cycle as a one-and-done discrete event. This state doesn't matter, but that one does, and Obama can't win this bloc of key voters or Obama got too high a percentage of his support from this constituency or that demographic. While some of these things are not entirely inaccurate from the horse-race perspective of an outsider analyst, they betray a distinct tunnel vision regarding why elections and campaigns exist in the first place. Those of us who follow politics and stalk opinion polls like the paparazzi on Lindsay Lohan can gauge the electoral maps, mentally color the states, and add up the tallies, and it's important for a campaign to have people who are able to do that stuff.

But all that is different from what it takes to build a party, around a message and a narrative, a party that's well-positioned to win future elections. And the Democrats are to an extent missing that at the moment. What do Democrats stand for? That they stand against George W. Bush might be sufficient to do well in a mid-term cycle where Bush is deeply unpopular, but is insufficient for any purpose beyond that. Do they stand for the idea that there might be a better way to deal with global terror networks than picking fights in random Middle Eastern countries? That as the cost of lethal force grows ever cheaper, that other levers of power beyond overwhelming military strength, might be necessary? That the system of health care that provides the most profit to certain companies might produce inferior results in terms of actual health outcomes for the population? That shifts in taxation policy that make life easier for those who already have it relatively easy, and harder for those not so fortunate, might be unwise to undertake? That incarcerating 1% of the adult population might not be the best use of our fiscal and human resources alike? To the extent that these questions go unasked, they are replaced by generalities about "strength" and "morality" or the overall vapidity of celebrity gossip shows.

And lest the reader think I am talking about eschewing style for substance, I am assuredly not. Style can be crucially important. To get voters to the polls, you have to get people with a sort of natural, built-in apathy, to want to go stand in line on what might a cold, windy, or rainy day. You need to inspire, and the two most effective ways known to do so are to inspire either hope or fear. The cynic might say that fear is a more powerful motivator than hope is, and he might even be right. While I cannot say that the party to which I belong has never used fear as a motivator before, I can say that as things stand at the moment, the opposition is better positioned to motivate through fear (fear of terrorism, fear of foreign countries, fear of immigrants) than we are.

As such, we are left with hope.

And that is a big part of why I have chosen to support who I support, more than the fine points and distinctions drawn by their specific policy prescriptions, more than whoever is more or less "electable," more than anything else. It sounds fuzzy and naive but I think there's a strong practical element to it.

Trouble In Paradise

I recently came across this interesting article from the Atlantic regarding the possible future of suburbia. The main culprit driving the crisis referred to in the article is the fallout from the bursting of the real estate bubble, namely the subprime mortgage meltdown and resultant credit crunch. Nowadays even in the wealthier jurisdictions of this sort, including Loudoun, there have been more and more foreclosure auctions and fewer and fewer takers.

Being the quinessential urbanite (my long commute from one central city to another notwithstanding - it's mostly on a train) I had never quite fully understood the appeal of the outer fringes of metropolitan areas. But all through the 1990s and even during the early years of this decade, most of the country appeared to disagree with me as outer suburbs boomed, notably nearby Loudoun County, Virgnia.

Nonetheless, from an objective point of view, it had occurred to me that outer suburbia was becoming a less desirable place to live for a variety of reasons.

* Some people moved to outer-ring suburbs or exurbs to be closer to wide open spaces, but the building boom in such areas over the last generation has brought more and more people and traffic, their appeal has declined, unless one was willing to live ever further from the city center.

* Much of the mass suburbanization the nation has seen has been driven by "white flight," white middle class families fleeing urban crime, urban blight, poor performing schools, forced busing plans, and other maladies that befell central cities over the second half of the 20th Century in particular. (Of course at this point "white flight" is something of a misnomer in many places since black middle-class families joined the exodus as well and in some locales have created their own patches of suburban development, some of them quite prosperous.) However, as recent immigrant populations come to the suburbs in search of more affordable housing, they often bring challenges to the standard assumptions about infrastructure needs in the subrubs - local school systems unaccustomed to language issues, road and transit systems not used to needing to provide the transportation and/or increased road capacity that these populations tend to need. The result has been a backlash and a backlash to the backlash. I don't need to mention that they make the suburbs look quite different then they did a generation ago, but racism is not the only factor and may not even be the most significant one.


* And of course, there's the factor I always thought would really sour people on the long commutes and hours waiting in traffic - the increased price of fuel.


I read peak oil theorist James Howard Kunstler's The Long Emergency upon a friend's recommendation and dismissed a lot of it as a little over the top, and when his prediction of a massive collapse in the Dow in 2007 utterly failed to materialize, I discounted or at least took with a grain of salt most of what was in the rest of the book. But a portion of the book where he described a scenario whereby some low-density suburbs might become the slums of tomorrow always stuck in my mind. With gas prices seemingly caught in an ever upward spiral, depending on residents to commute 40 or 50 miles every day each way to get to and from work seems like an unsustainable trend.

Other countries, those that have higher gasoline prices, are already ahead of the curve so to speak. I recently cam across ann odd little fact about the film Juno. In the movie, the title character and her family lived in a working class/lower-middle class suburb of Minneapolis with relatively small housing stock, and the Lorings, the prospective adoptive parents of Juno's baby live in a large house in a wealthy exurban area. But like a lot of movies, much of the filming actually took place in Vancouver, Canada. And while the pattern suggested by the movie still largely holds true in most American metropolitan areas, it turns out that in metro Vancouver, the modest house where Juno lives is worth more than the McMansion where the Lorings live, mostly because one could more easily walk or use public transit in Juno's neighborhood than in that of the Lorings, where a private vehicle is a necessity on every trip.

The bottom line here?

We junked our cities over the last 50 years in particular, in part to distance ourselves from poor people in general, and in part distance ourselves from other people in general. To that end, we built superhighways to facilitate our movements through these former open spaces that have now been filled with subdivisions and shopping malls and starved public transportation investments in most places, creating entire metro areas based exclusively around long car trips. We created almost by accident a tax system - federal, state, and local - that encouraged and incentivized people to move to bigger houses consuming more and space and more and more energy further and further outward. We fostered a politics of isolation, of alientaton, and of radical individualism - but ironically did so using a complex system of government subsidies and public incentives to a degree that a truly free market could not have indulged.

It was a shortsighted and foolish call on our part, but it was hard to notice that as long as oil was cheap and plentiful. None of this necessarily makes us any more or less venial than any other nation or culture on earth, for it cannot be said that the siren song that led us to where we are would have gone unheard by other nations or peoples. Indeed we are watching China and India trying to repeat our patterns of consumption before our very eyes. Whether or not the disaster that the Kunstlers of the world predict comes to pass, things will have to change and the sooner that we change our mindset the sooner we can get started.

Barack Obama For President

"You drank the Kool Aid." That's what a couple of friends have told me when they found out who I was voting for tomorrow.

The Presidential Primaries in Maryland (as well as Virginia and Washington, D.C.) are tomorrow.

The Republican race is basically settled. Mike Huckabee has a barely breathing campaign, Ron Paul never really had a chance, and everyone else worth mentioning has dropped out. It appears that John McCain is going to be their candidate.

So that leaves the Democrats, a party with whom, conveniently enough, I usually identify myself. And, for a whole host of reasons I can get into later if anyone cares, there is simply no way that I'm going to vote to give more power to the Republican Party the way that it currently exists at the national level. And that their choice is John McCain, whose dislike by certain types of movement conservatives is a point in his favor, does not really change any of that. Just because I think John McCain is probably a better human being than George W. Bush does not mean I think he'd necessarily be better as President. Sure he sometimes takes moderate positions to make himself look good for the press; apart from a relatively ineffective campaign finance reform measure, most have little substance behind them. Perhaps most importantly, he will be selecting from the same pool as Bush for political appointees in general and judges in particular.

And at this stage, with all the other Democratic candidates having departed the Presidential hunt, we are down to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Either way, the choice will be a momentous historical first.

How did I make my call?

I used to look at candidate websites extensively and compare the minor details of their various policy proposals until I concluded that substantive differences in micro-policy issues don't generally amount to much. They would matter a lot more if we were electing a dictator, but whoever becomes President is going to have to get his proposals through Congress and they're going to have their own ideas. Presidents don't, except in the most extreme circumstances, get up-or-down votes on their policy prescriptions. And in any case, there isn't a ton of daylight to be found in most of the differences between the stated platforms of these two Senators. I find much in their respective records that I like, and a few things about both that concern me.

I look at Hillary Clinton, and I see someone who is capable, sharp, and a good debater. If it came down to voting for her vs. John McCain, I wouldn't hesitate to pull the lever for her. She's had everything but the kitchen sink thrown at her by the Republican attack machine, who probably have no new ammunition. She's been a fairly effective Senator by most accounts, able to work with members of both parties despite having been tagged as a "divisive" politican. There has been a lot of criticism aimed at her by Republicans and Democrats alike and not all of it is fair. I watched the Republicans turn John Kerry into a "divisive" figure, and having watched Kerry in action for nearly two decades, I can say that he if he can be pilloried that way so can almost anyone.

Hillary is in part selling herself as a sort of "bridge to the 1990s," harkening back to her husband's term of office. Which, to most people who aren't staunch Repuiblicans, looks even better thanks to the seven-plus intervening years of the administration of George W. Bush.
It was a more fiscally responsible administration, and one that pushed America's image in the world in a positive direction.

On the other hand, I see some causes for concern, particularly if we're talking about the Iraq War as an important issue. Likely opponent John McCain is even more enthusiastic about the ongoing conflict than the current White House occupant; the foreign policy neoconservative set was the only portion of the GOP establishment that preferred McCain to Bush in 2000. And what exactly is Hillary going to say when the topic is addressed? I look what happened to similarly compromised John Kerry, a combat veteran unlike Clinton, on this issue and I don't want a repeat. Yes, we all know that it was easier in 2002 for Obama, then a state legislator from Chicago, to take a stand against the Iraq War we all know was coming than it was as a Senator (even one with a safe seat) with an eye on the White House. But her subsequent hawkish remarks make such a plea for latitude ring somewhat hollow. Clinton voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, widely interpreted as the first stage of beating the drums for a war against Iran. Kerry by then had grown wiser, Edwards came out against the resolution (albeit he was no longer in the Senate.) However sympathetic one wants to be about the 2002 force authorization with respect to Iraq, a position taken by a large number of Democrats, the fact is that she has not only continued to defend that vote but in way repeated the blunder in 2007 with respect to Iran. Which makes her either a supporter of the Bush foreign policy agenda, someone still clueless about that agenda, or someone too frightened to take a clear stand against it. None of those possibilities reflects particularly well on her.

And the 1990s were not all wine and roses as far as Democrats are concerned. When Bill Clinton came into office, Democrats had at least institutional control of both houses of Congress, a majority of state legislatures and gubernatorial offices - and all that changed dramatically during his tenure. As masterful as Clinton was at playing himself off against the slash-and-burn Gingrich Republicans, the relatively ineffective (dare I say impotent?) Bob Dole, and the screaming banshees of AM radio - it did not ultimately help the party, who left the Clinton presidency disenchanted and rudderless. It made the unfortunate Bush Presidency possible. Clinton gained much of his goodwill among Democrats by fighting the Republicans more on style than on substance. We were so outraged by the nature of the Republican attacks on Bill Clinton and their overreaching that we sometimes forgot that he undermined his own Presidency with the Monica Lewinsky affair. Between that and his considerable charm, sometimes we even forgot that many of the accomplishments of the Clinton presidency - NAFTA and welfare reform in particular - were more the brainchild of Republicans than of Democrats. Now maybe Hillary Clinton is different, but if she has criticized any of these aspects of her husband's administration or stated that her Presidency would be a totally different story, I have yet to hear it. Their own manipulations and careful positioning have led many people to believe that the Clintons were far more liberal than they really are/were - and why on earth would we nominate a centrist whom everyone seems to think is a flaming liberal? (If we're going to go for the center, I would think we ought to at least get credit for that from swing voters.)

Don't get me wrong. If the 1990s are all I can have - if the alternative is more bellicosity, more make-the-well-off-even-better-off tax schemes, more Scalia acolytes on the federal bench - I'll be the first one to bust out the plaid flannel shirts. I'll refight the fights over a soundtrack of Better Than Ezra and Hootie & The Blowfish.

But if I see something that I think will be better, that's where I'm going. And I think I see something better.

When I look at Senator Obama, I see someone who looks more like where America is going than where America has been. I see someone I can point to and say "I guess anyone can become President after all." And there are a lot of people who don't believe that now, and I think we'd be far better off if they could.

I look at someone who has had life experiences that people my age and younger can relate to, someone who has not necessarily been gunning for the White House his entire life. I see someone has spent a good deal of time outside the United States, a good quality to have in someone whose decisions and statements cause ripple effects the world over.

When I listen to Senator Obama, I hear something that sounds different. I hear someone who can inspire people, even - to some degree - this somewhat hardened cynic, jaded by years of living in Washington and witnessing the whole sausage-making process at close range.

And furthermore, I see the same deftness and capabilities I see in Hillary Clinton, and without the baggage that comes with all the old wars. That's not entirely fair to Senator Clinton, who has a record of her own, but this is about who to vote for, not necessarily who "deserves" the nomination.

I've seen the game as it is now played up close - from the goalposts to playbooks. And it hasn't been all bad, but I think I'm ready to play a different kind of game. And that's why I am going to the polls tomorrow morning. Kool Aid and all.

And Then There Were Three...

I was going to write something about Super Tuesday but work and other things just got in the way. Oddly enough, it looks like, contrary to what people were expecting, the Democratic race (which I'll get to later) has considerably more drama left in it than the Republican race.

And now Mitt Romney is out of the race, leaving only John McCain and the longshots Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.

As someone who's not even considering voting for any kind of Republican in November, I'll say that at some level I feel a little sorry for Romney. He has a history of competence in an executive office unmatched by any of the other candidates, and his record shows he'd be likely to place more value in capability than any of the other Republicans, which would be a welcome change after Bush. There's something to be said for genuine private-sector achievement, absent in other candidates on both sides and fairly a rare attribute among politicians, even in the business-worshipping GOP. I probably wouldn't like his policy agenda any than I like Bush's, or would like McCain's, but I think there would have been a better chance that I might not have the suspicion that he was trying to turn the conservative mantra "government can't do anything right" into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy as much.

But he had a tough row to hoe. Now, we just generally assume that politicians will say anything to get elected, but Romney over the course of his career has made that a little bit too obvious. You're not going to be able, the way the GOP exists in 2008, to pitch yourself as a Rockerfeller-style Republican when running for office in Massachusetts and then pivot your way 180 degrees and campaign on a hard-right platform and stay credible to primary voters.

And then there's the whole Mormon factor.

Many Evangelical Christians consider the Church of Latter Day Saints, even though they share similarly conservative politics in most cases, to be little better than a "cult." The LDS has what one could describe as a checkered history, but it doesn't make any more sense to blame Romney for the Mountain Meadows Massacre or some of the very strange beliefs about racial differences that once existed in Mormon theology than it does to blame the Spanish Inquisition on John Kerry. It wasn't a factor in Massachusetts, not just because Evangelicals are few and far between in the Commonwealth but because Romney never ran for any office as a "Christian." In that race, he was running as a manager, a competent technocrat who would provide something of a counterweight to a legislature dominated by Democrats on a seemingly permanent basis. It was a successful sales pitch to swing voters in the Bay State, a generally liberal-to-moderate set who tend towards the secular and weren't concerned at all with the details of Mormon theology or where and how it deviates from that of other denominations and sects. Even if those beliefs and teachings were difficult to reconcile with the values of most Bay State residents, pointing them out to Massachusetts voters would have been of no help to his opponent and might have even created a sympathy backlash for Romney.

Of course, hindsight being 20/20, we now know that Democrats' predictable and futile warnings in Massachusetts that Romney was a stealth candidate for the far-right proved to be true in a sense. He got generally high marks for his first year or so in office, but then he got the idea that his job was a stepping stone to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Around that time, Romney decided that he was opposed to embryonic stem cell research, which of course doesn't serve a state with a huge biotech industry very well. After trying on a few different positions concerning legal recognition of same-sex couples, he realized that his sales pitch to Republican voters in Iowa and South Carolina required him to adopt the view that any such recognition would be a threat to Western Civilization. Illegal immigration was a plague to be fought - except of course when it came to the people mowing the lawn at his mansion. He decided that he was now anti-abortion, not that that was a huge issue at the state level in anything but a theoretical sense. And suddenly the most liberal state in the country was being run - when Romney was around, as he was travelling a lot - by a dittohead.

Running for governor of such a state and running a national Republican primary are two completely different undertakings. In the latter, you're looking to appeal to a group of voters many of whom are looking for someone who is a "Christian" who is going to govern as a "Christian." And in that specific context, having a belief system whose tenets state that there are additional books to the Bible found in the 19th century that reveal that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri suddenly becomes a problem. If that wasn't enough, Romney was of course on record more than once as having previously professed to hold liberal positions on some major hot-button social issues. Primary voters almost couldn't help wondering to themselves whether he was lying to Massachusetts voters then or lying to them now. And I suppose I can't blame them too much.

Regardless of what I said above, two things please me about this development.

One, Romney was clearly the darling of the sort of people that fund the Republicans and their campaign apparatus, even more than the departed and largely unlamented Rudy Giulani. The money men distrust McCain as someone more than willing to sell them out (even if he comes around more often than not) for some quick favorable press and dislike Huckabee's attempts, however modest, to redefine Christian governance as something other than a facade for their favored policies.

Second, it goes to show that money isn't everything in elections, since Mitt was by far the richest man in this race and had the most cash to play with. In many ways, he is to the 2008 race for the White House what Phil Gramm was to the 1996 race. Money will help you get your face on TV, get your message to the the media, and ensure that lots of people will see your signs. But just as that money couldn't make Phil Gramm likeable by anyone outside his core audience, nor could it get voters to overlook what they thought was wrong with Mitt. The parallels are numerous, from the outright purchase of the Iowa Straw Poll by both men to the endorsements by local pols that proved useless in the end.

Third, the whole episode may have exposed more fissures in the conservative movement that has grabbed control of politics and government and done a lot of damage that needs to be cleaned up. The candidate promoted almost solely on the basis of keeping the different factions of the movement together, Fred Thompson, fizzled. The darling of the Christian conservatives, Mike Huckabee, is still in the race but is getting no support from anyone else. And now both candidates heavily promoted by the money interests, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney, were rejected by the base. The only major faction of the GOP that is truly happy with John McCain as the clear-cut front runner is the neoconservative foreign policy set, as he's even more in favor of preventative wars than Bush.

The Republicans seemingly have their candidate in McCain, and while the media adores him and he polls well thusfar against Democrats, he currently owes neither the religious conservatives nor the Republican money machine anything, and that can only be a good thing.

Stay tuned.