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On Timing in Political Strategy

"Never allow a crisis to go to waste" said White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to the reporters, as so said many an administration official in constructing a theme to frame their policy initiatives. These Democrats are choosing to spin their actions as emergency responses to crisis situations, and grand crises demand grand responses; they are firemen, doing whatever it takes to put out the fire.

This is the language used to convince the skeptical. And who would object to bold action, in these turbulent days? Who denies the house is burning?

But the administration is surely not alone in recognizing the unique openings in the current political landscape. What must the country's social activists be thinking right about now?

With unemployment high, retirement funds failing, whole sectors of industry lurching, wars ongoing, with so many urgent situations demanding people's attention, when has there been a better time to push hot-button "culture war" issues? When have the old labels and morality debates seemed as feckless? Beyond just a personal feeling, the numbers are beginning to support this idea.

Among its many polls, Gallup tracks the open-ended question "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?"

In the April 6th-9th 2009 tracking, of all the classic American social issues only the vaguely general  "Ethics/Moral/Religious/Family Decline; Dishonesty" response registered much at all, with 4%. "Drugs" came in at 1%, while "Abortion", "Judicial System/Courts/Law", "Guns/Gun Control", and yes, "Gay Rights Issues" all came in at less than 0.5%.

(http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/Most-Important-Problem.aspx)

If I'm a proponent of gay marriage, or medical marijuana, or universally legal abortion, or the reinstatement of the assault rifle ban, or gays in the military, I'm looking at those numbers and thinking "Now's my time."

There is more political cover to pursue cultural issues right now than at any other moment in my lifetime. Opposition will always exist, but it's currently as distracted as it's ever likely to be. Who cares if gays in Vermont want to marry while I'm getting laid off in Louisiana? 

As always, there are obstacles: the political will to start such culture-war fights will be extremely low. Any politician championing these causes risks being caricatured by conservative spin as "fiddling while Rome burns" by loosing concentration on economic priorities, or as finally displaying a long-secret liberal agenda.

Still, this country is in cultural shell-shock. There has been a severe undermining of faith in the infallibility of the elites, a heightened sense of camaraderie amongst the working class, and a swelling disorientation about our own conceptions of the social fabric.

If that doesn't describe a window of opportunity for changing attitudes and challenging prejudices, then I don't know what does.

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On Conventional Wisdoms...

A few words on a political canard of recent vintage that has proved irritatingly resilient.

During the George W Bush years, it became something of a conventional wisdom to say that, at its core, This is a Conservative Nation. Republicans, it was pointed out, had enjoyed a "strangle hold" on the White House for forty years, interrupted only by two moderate southern governors, Carter and Clinton. Nationwide membership in the two major parties had been trending Republican, and more Americans were comfortable describing themselves with the label "conservative" rather than "liberal". In fact, "liberal" had become a dirty word, avoided even by Democrats. 

After the Democrats enjoyed sweeping victories in the 2006 congressional elections, pundits cautioned us to remember that, still, This is a Conservative Nation, and Democrats needed to be careful of overreach. 

That this carefully cultivated myth still endures even in some mainstream corners of the media demands a quick reality check. 

First, that matter about the White House.

Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. At first glance, that list does seem a bit Republican heavy. Upon some consideration, however, one realizes that Ford never won an election, and thus doesn't really count. And upon further consideration still, one realizes that the 2000 election, strictly in terms of measuring the relative political makeup of the country, counts as a win for the Democrats. After all, more Americans did vote for Al Gore than George W Bush.

So over the last 10 presidential elections, we then call 1972, '80, '84, '88, and '04 for red, and 1976, '92, '96, '00, and '08 for blue. By my count that's 5 to 5 - with 4 of the last 5 going Democrat. Not exactly a "strangle hold".

What about Congress, then?

This current congress is in place until 2011, so we'll use that date as our starting point. Over the 80 years prior, going back to 1931, the Senate has been majority Democrat for 55.5 years, to the Republicans' 22.5. And the House of Representatives? The House may be the more accurate indicator of our nationwide political makeup, offering as it does a more localized, fleshed-out detail of the political landscape, district by district. The House's numbers are even more dramatic, going to the Democrats for a staggering 64 of the past 80 years.

But 80 years, perhaps that's going back too far; after all, it is a bit unfair to Republicans to include the Great Depression, a time when capitalism itself hung in the balance. We'll limit our examination to rosier, easier times. Let's just consider the Republican's strongest period in a century, the last 25 years.

So, over the past quarter century - a period stretching from the height of the Reagan '80s, spanning two Presidents Bush, and including the Gingrich revolution in the House of Representatives - the Senate went majority Democrat 13.5 years to the Republican's 11.5, while the House split 13 years to 12 in favor of the Democrats.

For a Conservative Nation, we sure do vote Democrat a lot.

the sky line

The Philip Burton Federal Building, San Francisco

San Francisco may not place in the highest rank of architecturally significant cities, but neither does it lack for built icons. This city's skyline profiles have graced more than their share of postcards. And yet one of our most communicative buildings, one of the most impactful in its bearing, is one not breezily identified with the city's image. Understandable, since it is, in itself, not much more than ordinary. What does make the Philip Burton Federal Building noteworthy is the illustrative example it offers of context in urban design, and of the pressures and influences that built structure can exude onto the surrounding environment.

The walk up to the front of the building will not grip the casual stroller. This building has obvious, undeniable design failings. It is not the most aesthetically engaging structure one is likely to find. It is simple and streamlined to a fault, a big, gleaming, steel and glass box built during an era of skyscraper chic when gleaming boxes, if not quite in the west coast ascendant, were in their prime. Even on these terms, though, its appeal has lost traction with the years. Set against the sleek and slender towers that now dot the city's skyline, it seems squat, big-boned, perhaps a touch frumpy.

Still, its composition on the whole is not entirely unsuccessful. The grays and blacks in the external framework blend with the reflected glare of the glass, capturing geometries of light and shading that articulate a sense of architectural order somehow more nuanced, more expressive than the typical office block. There is no pomp or even much personality to be found here, but there is a restrained stateliness of sorts. This is, after all, the seat of the US District Court for northern California, and the building's form and function are inescapably tied to signs of authority.

The plaza site spread across the front entrance and blending into Golden Gate Avenue is handled adequately. The perpetual challenge of designing public space for federal property is that of meeting the absolute necessities of safety and security while hopefully still maintaining some semblance of openness. How to design for safety without creating a fortress mentality; how to design for accessibility without opening security vulnerabilities? The slanting, concrete grass-capped knoll offers an acceptable solution that does not offend too much. This is not the most attractive or rich public square in the city, but neither is it the most attractive or rich site with which to work. But the plaza isn't what's interesting here.

Step back a bit and take a walk all the way around the block. Start on the south side, at UN Plaza where the BART station pokes its head up, and walk up the pedestrianized stretch of Fulton Street toward City Hall. The Federal Courthouse is visible to the north as you walk, full and weighty, sitting at the back of the cluster of public buildings set around San Francisco's city-beautiful civic center.


Here it sits comfortably, framing the central plaza, reinforcing and sealing off the axes directing flow toward City Hall, the focal point of the center. Its colors are darker, its materials contrast with those of its neighbors, yet its size, shape, and bearing reinforce the space it's set in. Its height completes a smooth, progressive step-up from the floor of the central plaza. Its design lines flow in parallel with surrounding architectural lines. It adds perhaps a more modern-era themed note to the neoclassical facades around it, stoically humming in the background like a Kubrick-ian monolith, while its mass anchors the entire set-piece. These buildings bow and nod to each other, as gentleman assembled in an austere settting.

Keep walking, past City Hall, around to the Courthouse's side, and head north, along Polk Street.


Now the stroller is presented with a singular object isolated within a clear blue field, wide and neutral. All the ceremony has drained off. Stripped of context, there isn't much of any impression left to take. Without its companion pieces, the building's sense of identity becomes loosed of its moorings, and drifts.

Keep going, past the Courthouse, north up to Eddy Street.


Again, the feeling changes. The first thing the stroller now feels is a sudden palpable sheerness. The rear wall is essentially identical to the front, but the context has been utterly upended. Gone is the sense of gradual gradation in height, of conference between structures; this building lords over its neighbors. From this vantage, the building is out of scale, a looming presence that takes on a quality of foreboding.

Now cross back along Eddy Street for a block, stroller, and turn up Larkin Street, heading north. Soon you'll find yourself moving deeper into those gray spaces between the Polk Gulch nightlife strip and the Tenderloin, home to the city's underbelly, a steamy mixture of drug abuse, homelessness, and the grittiest hipsters; a contemporary skid row at the vanguard of gentrification. In this setting, the symbolic freight of the courthouse is maximized, and inescapable. It becomes a territorial demarcation of civil society itself, a wall to keep the barbarians outside the kingdom.


Experienced on a human scale, from different points along the radius of a casual stroll, the courthouse reveals distinct and contradictory faces that change with the social landscape. Like people, buildings sometimes change their behavior with the company they're in.

the sporting life

Bosox Barry?

Call me crazy, but is this not the very scenario imagined as the one possible path for Barry Bonds back into baseball?

An American League contender, preferably a big-market team with big-market money, loses a big power hitter to injury and is forced to seriously consider taking on all the many headaches for Bonds' still formidable talents. And so, right on cue, down goes David Ortiz and his big bat (and left handed bat, at that!), for at least a month and maybe for the rest of the season, and the Red Sox have to come up with a Plan B.

All in all, it's the perfect scenario: It's Boston, with no limits on spending and a win-at-all-costs mentality. And it's their DH who's injured, so the disruption would be minimal. Bonds could just slip right into Ortiz's slot without disturbing any other player's place on the field or in the lineup. Barry couldn't have written it up any better.

But what about steroids? Sure, Boston hated Bonds as much as the next city, but that was then and this is now. A lot has changed since last we've seen Bonds: namely, the Mitchell Report. The heat's come way off Bonds as the rest of the country has been forced to face that the Steroids Era was exactly that, an era, and not one man. Boston, especially, has been pressed into a broader perspective, what with Roger Clemens, one of the Red Sox franchise players of the past twenty five years, taking over Bonds' mantle of steroids Whipping Boy. How could they reject Bonds without calling huge chunks of their own history into question?

I attended a Giants - Red Sox game at Fenway in June 2007. The media were all over him for days leading up to the series, the fans let him have it every time he came to the plate...until he homered, and then the park filled with oohs and aahs, because that's what everybody had come to see. The great Barry Bonds, crushing one deep, and you sensed that there would have been disappointment if the game's Home Run King had gone his whole career without homering at majestic Fenway, perhaps baseball's most mythologized showcase theater. Boston knows baseball, they're not blind to its history. They would accept Bonds.

But will the Red Sox bite? Maybe not now, not while there's still hope of Ortiz returning, not while they're still hanging onto a playoff slot. But that playoff spot is looking tenuous, indeed; Boston woke up today 4 full games back of Tampa, just a single game ahead of the surging Twins for the wildcard, and with growing worries that Manny Ramirez's month long slump may be more serious than previously thought. If a month from now the Rays are still growing stronger rather than weaker, if Boston bats are anything less than booming, and if the devastating combination punch of Ortiz/Ramirez still looks as compromised as it does now, you can bet the Boston Barry Buzz will start to take on a life of its own.

the sporting life

Baseball Notes

With the announcement of the postseason awards, we are pleased to report the 2006 baseball season officially over, and a pleasant ending it’s turned to be. We have, all of us, just narrowly avoided the reality of an MVP award for Derek Jeter, and so, this Thanksgiving time, as we all of us sit in reflection with our loved ones, lets all of us not fail to think of in gratitude whatever spirit or animal force that saved us from such a fate…


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A Word On Winning…

The Cardinals’ unexpected World Series win serves to underscore the vagaries of the postseason. As Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa put it, it’s not the best team that wins, it’s the team that plays the best. So St. Louis, perhaps the 6th “best” team of the 8 in the playoffs, was fortunate to be playing the best at the right time. Assigning too much blame or praise associated with postseason success or failure misses that point. Ripping the Yankees for not winning enough misses the point in exactly the same way ripping the A’s or the Braves does. Records over a whole season tell you how good a team is. Records over 7 games in October tell you how lucky.

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…Just to create a sense of how drastically the economic landscape in baseball has changed: the highest team payroll in 1991 was that of the small-market Oakland A’s…and the year before that it belonged to the Kansas City Royals…

…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can we lay off A-Rod, please? Come on, a run of “soft” (huh?), somehow “un-clutch” hits, and the guy’s a bum? How many reigning MVP’s have gotten booed at home the next season? How many reigning MVP’s have batted 8th in a playoff game? None, never. Give the guy a friggin’ break. I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t produced for you. In three years with the Yankees, the guy’s hit 119 home runs, driven in 357, and won a league MVP. He’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Have some patience, for chrissakes…

…and yeah, yeah, I know, New York has no patience, and loves it that way ! O, New York and her vaunted aspirations, her celebrated refusal to accept failure! O, how she prides herself on her soaring expectations of herself! Whatever, shut up. I’m so tired of hearing about the Yankees’ lack of championships since 2000, as if 6 years with only 6 division titles, three ALCS appearances, and two World Series represents some kind of drought. Winning 4 titles in 5 years, that was the anomaly. And considering the 15 years prior that without a sniff of the playoffs, even New Yorkers should be capable of some dim appreciativeness of their current success, which by no means must continue indefinitely, even with the deck perpetually stacked in their favor. After all, even for New York, it’s a fine line between steadfast and irrational.

…It’s time for me to belatedly tip my cap to Detroit Tigers future-Hall-of-Fame catcher Pudge Rodriguez. I ripped Pudge when he followed the money from the playoff-regular Texas Rangers to the atrocious Florida Marlins, and kept ripping him…right up until they won the World Series in 2003. I ripped him again when even more money led him to the even more atrocious Tigers…who then, just a couple years removed from some of the worst seasons any team’s put up in the last couple decades, stormed to this year’s World Series, and were unlucky to lose it. Two cynical free agent moves to two terrible teams, and two World Series. While wary of giving any one player too much credit for an entire team’s performance, you have to give Pudge his due for his not insignificant role in two remarkable turn-arounds. Steroid accusations notwithstanding, Pudge has carved himself out a comfortable place in baseball history…


In Memoriam: What a strange death for Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle, plowing his private aircraft into a midtown Manhattan apartment tower, killing him and his flight instructor (um, how much was this guy charging you, Cory?), with many questions left unanswered. We remember him here in the Bay Area for his capable run as the A’s fourth starter for a time, and now, in light of this tragic circumstance, we may even be inclined to forgive him his disastrous playoff start against the Yankees in 2001. We will not forgive, however, his posthumous meddling in the league’s balance of power. Does it make me a cynic and perhaps a bit macabre if I point out that “mourners” in attendance at the California memorial service included Yankees Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, manager Joe Torre, general manager Brain Cashman, photo-op lap-dog Reggie Jackson…and A’s uber-free agent Barry Zito? Maybe it does. Even so, sounds like a pretty good recruiting party, doesn’t it? You can just see the 3 or 4 other GMs vying for Zito’s services sitting in front of their tvs (what, I don’t know, the Celebrity Funeral Network?) watching Torre and Giambi hugging the coveted southpaw starter, and screaming Hey, I would’ve signed Lidle if I knew he was gonna die!…

…wait, wait a minute here!…Celebrity Funeral Network….That’s a great idea! Go on, tell me you wouldn’t watch it!…

…Zito, by the way, is generally considered to be only interested in/affordable for the four teams in the two big markets, and the four possibilities have wildly differing consequences and appeal from an A’s fan’s perspective. Yankees or Angels? Totally Unacceptable. Dodgers or Mets? Fun and Intriguing! Picture Zito marching into Pac Bell with Dodger Blue on, with his NL-style old-school knee high socks roll, stuffing that swooping curveball of his down the Giant’s throats, a perfectly delicious East Bay scenario! Let’s get Zito into the NL as quickly as possible…

...As the ink lay drying on Frank Thomas’ contract with the Blue Jays, the wild speculation putting Barry Bonds on the A’s had already leaped into full swing. And for good reason; strictly as a pure baseball move, it makes a lot of sense. A’s GM Billy Beane called Thomas the “posterboy” for the A’s type of hitter, but Bonds does all the things valued in Thomas better than anyone. In short, he walks and he hits for power, like nobody else ever has. Stepping out ahead of the buzz, the A’s quickly got the word out that Bonds was not seriously under consideration, that the fans were solidly opposed, that all the baggage and disruption in hosting the Bonds Traveling Circus (not the least of which being the supreme test Barry “clubhouse cancer” Bonds would impose upon the A’s carefully crafted carefree clubhouse chemistry…say that five times quick…) was more than management wanted to take on. An unsurprising stance; what else could they say? But with the subtraction of Thomas’ heavy bat from an already light-hitting team that desperately needs to add, and not lose, significant offense, it’s hard to imagine Beane genuinely having no interest. If he can stay healthy for a full season (a huge “if”, but much more plausible in the American League as a Designated Hitter, with no fielding responsibilities), Bonds is likely capable of at least as much production as Thomas contributed last year, and quite probably more. How many of the available players out there can you say that of? Alfonso Soriano’s already signed, as is Aramis Ramirez, and now so is Moises Alou, a name that had been submitted as a possible Thomas replacement. If the A’s intend to add a bat through free agency this year, well, the pool is drying up fast. Bottom line: with Bonds, they’re as good as last year; without Bonds, their impoverished offense gets even worse. He may not be the only solution for the A’s, but if you’re going to pass on him, you better have a pretty convincing Plan B. Like it or not, the A’s need Bonds…

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Midterm Elections Roundup

On the heels of the Democrats’ sweep back into power, the pr machines on both sides have immediately leaped into cycle after cycle of relentless spin, a task they were surely long prepared for, regardless of outcome. And so we’re all able to find our comfort-zone with the results, be it with Fox News, conservative columnists like Charles Krauthammer, or Karl Rove himself telling us there’s no larger meaning to glean; that uncontrollable (if foolishly exasperated) historical trends have merely masked, not derailed, America’s strident Conservative Turn; that we’re likely to see a broad return to power for the Republicans in 2008… or be it with The Dailey Show, liberal columnists like Paul Krugman, or Slate and The New Republic telling us that Rove’s politics of Party Base Extremism worked for a while but have now been thoroughly discredited; that the Republicans have completely alienated the political Center and now risk becoming a regional party, localized solely in the Deep South; that though it may not yet necessarily mark the emergence of a new political era, it certainly marks the end of one. And believe me, they all have plenty of numbers corroborating their version of the story. Is one right, or the other wrong?

One of the oldest term-paper tricks in the book is to cite sources presenting perspective X, then sources presenting competing perspective Y, and then declare shortcomings in both as you present your own more rational, dispassionate analysis concluding that “the reality is somewhere in-between”, something more like X/Y. Most academic texts will use some form of this in the literature review section for the simple reason that it’s always correct, or at least always defensible. So the self-styled “balanced” commentators are finding all sorts of variations of middle ground to stake out, picking parts of each side to agree with, and why not? The Center’s back in the ascendant; it’s cool to be moderate again.

Of course, there are no truisms in politics, nothing unequivocally correct. Still, I think it about right to suggest that as a country we’ll look back at these years as a unique period in our history, and frankly, one that carried us in rather predictable directions in the wake of September Eleventh. I remember my first thought upon taking the full measure of that day’s events was that an immediate counter-balancing wave of conservatism was inevitable, a common reaction to such national traumas, and that it could last a decade or more. It is, to a large degree, to the Republican’s discredit that they could not sustain the wave longer than they did. Karl Rove will undoubtedly be remembered a masterful wizard of electoral politics whose vision and instincts shredded a stack of conventional wisdoms, but his era created him as much as he created his era. To use the old phrase, if Karl Rove had not existed, he would have been invented. Given a social period of sudden insecurity, it should hardly be surprising that a practice of politics bent toward those insecurities should win a degree of purchase.

What should be equally unsurprising, then, is its passing. Even in its invincible, romping heyday, the proposition was never entirely convincing. The recent alliance between Western libertarians and Southern fundamentalists was always a marriage of convenience, held together with spit and string, its dissolution inevitable. This was never to be a “permanent majority” for the simple reason that it was a reflection of such singular times. Extremism is naturally unsustainable, only truly influential in extraordinary circumstance. Bush, hand-in-hand with Rove, was only made possible by his times. He was just plain lucky in 2000, with more Americans voting for Al Gore, and became President for no other reason than that Bill Clinton had opportunity to appoint two Supreme Court justices rather than three. Standing within the full artifice of the War On Terror, drums beating, he won in 2004, re-elected by the narrowest margin of any second-term President in US history. September Eleventh dramatically shaped the direction and force of Bush’s presidency. So why should it be surprising that as the period’s singular circumstance wanes, so should Bush’s influence?

I, myself, like the ballyhooed idea that the overreaching extremism of the collapsed September Eleventh Wave may now set the conditions for an emerging third party, the Centrist Party: economically responsible, environmentally realistic, traditional but pragmatic on social issues, which is all to say driven not at all by pre-set ideology, something all political corners are distancing themselves from. More contending parties would be healthy. Needless to say, that’s a far stretch from here.

The idea, though, that Rove has dug the Republicans into a deep well and has isolated the party in the Deep South overstates the tone of last Tuesday’s election. Rove’s wins are overstated, and so are his losses. Republicans will find power again, Democrats will lose power again, Republicans will win the middle states again, Democrats will elect presidents again, and on and on. Politics wear on the viewer much as sports do; there’s only so long you can watch the little ball go back and forth. So we’ve just had a change in the show we’re watching. Which is all I really wanted from these elections, because the last show had gotten almost unwatchable; terrible directing, terrible acting, with incoherent plotlines...

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…One has to wonder how Joe Lieberman’s feeling these days. After a humiliating defeat in his state’s primary election, thrown to the wolves by his home-state Connecticut Democrats as well as the party’s national planners, he ran as an independent and won a convincing victory. Now he returns to the Senate to work with all those colleagues who may or may not have had a hand in the palace coup attempt to unseat him. Lieberman promises to caucus with the Democrats, and most of his Senate party-mates probably had nothing to do with his trials. Still, when your razor-thin majority rests on the loyalty of someone you just stabbed in the back, it bears watching…


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…Legislation has direct effects on everyday life, but it waxes and wanes, one Congress frequently modifying or completely undoing what another has done. The Judiciary, however, casts a longer shadow. It’s extremely hard to reverse trends in the makeup of federal judges; in fact, there’s really only one way to do so: win elections, wait for old judges to retire, and appoint new judges. So there really is no undoing what past administrations have done, consequences all the more magnified at the exclusive top-rung, the US Supreme Court. When Bush replaced Rehnquist with Roberts it was merely a renewal (albeit a 40 year renewal) of a staunch conservative seat, and did not affect the Court’s balance. When Bush replaced O’Connor with Alito, it was a more significant realignment, trading the Court’s swing vote for a solid conservative. If Bush gets another shot, it may well be to replace John Paul Stevens, the court’s oldest justice, and its most liberal.

Judges are cited every election as a vital reason to vote one way or the other, but it remains true that among the most important results for Democrats in retaking the Senate was the Supreme Court safety net that came with it. It’s the Senate, and not the House, that has authority to review Supreme Court nominations. Now, should there be another Bush nominee, it will necessarily be a compromise, which is to say, a moderate, with far less drastic repercussions for the fate of progressive law. With a Republican Senate, we may well have been looking at another Alito replacing Stevens, which would have obliterated the Court’s balance, and sent any number of would-be split-decision votes to clear conservative wins. Roe v Wade, among many other liberal lynchpin rulings, would almost certainly fall. All for 3,000 votes in Montana…

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Run, Barack, Run

After a weekend featuring a David Brooks (moderate conservative) nytimes column under the above title, a full-hour appearance on Charlie Rose, and a soft proclamation on Meet The Press announcing his intention to, well, at least no longer deny his possible candidacy, the spectre of a 2008 presidential bid for first term Illinois Senator Barack Obama has suddenly become very real.

So far laying very low and far in the background, Obama's view of the landscape must have changed dramatically upon the unexpected and mysterious drop-out of former Virginia governor Mark Warner, widely viewed as the only viable Hillary-alternative in the party. All of the political space Warner had so meticulously marked out and wrested away from Clinton was suddenly thrown open, waiting to be occupied. Gore and Kerry (and Edwards?) notwithstanding, the path through the party primary suddenly became much clearer.

But is this country ready to elect a black president? Speaking entirely from the gut, I don't believe racism can any longer single-handedly sink a General Election campaign in the US. But the missed point is that it doesn't matter. Let's remember: Of Late, America doesn't elect presidents; Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida do. The South's going to vote Republican, whomever the respective major party nominees are. Independent swing voters in battleground states are the votes that matter, and I don't believe that group votes their prejudices.

But anyway, that's assuming we still must irresistibly face the same red/blue 51%/48% electoral map ad infinitum, a landscape picture that seems increasingly outdated everyday. Karl Rove's America is rapidly fading, and as I'm sure every two-bit political operative in Washington that gets within earshot is telling Obama, this is an historically singular electoral moment. Presidential races simply do not get this wide open. There is a wildly unpopular two-term president on the way out, creating broad opposition opportunity for any Democratic candidate; with the vice-president a non-factor, there is no name-brand incumbency to overcome; all other Democratic candidates are, to some degree, "old news". Mr. Obama, at 45 years old, with just two years in Washington and without foreign policy exposure, remains short on experience, his most glaring shortcoming and the grounds upon which his candidacy would surely be attacked. Despite all that, it's hard to imagine a more opportune array of political circumstance coming together than what's emerging right now.

There has been a veritable avalanche of press and momentum this week building toward a campaign, and to some degree the hype must always run ahead of the reality. This is all awfully quick for a man two years removed from the Illinois State Senate, maybe too quick. Perhaps the flames are indeed being fanned by Republicans confident they can easily beat an inexperienced Obama campaign with the hugely popular John McCain. Perhaps this is just positioning for a John Edwards type run for the Vice Presidency, on what would be an exciting Clinton/Obama ticket. Whatever the precise vector of these forces, their possible outcomes are fascinating to imagine.

Imagine going from George W Bush to Barack Obama. Imagine the instantaneous about-face in the international perception of the US. Imagine a mid-forties Kennedy-esque black man, daper and goodlooking, stepping off Airforce One and striding across the tarmacs of Europe as US president. Imagine the crowds of screaming fans that would everywhere greet him as a rock star. Imagine the spectacle of his first trip to Africa. Imagine a president that across the world creates an excited buzz of positive energy in his wake.