More on the Primaries

David Brooks argues that these primaries are "all about Iowa and New Hampshire liberals trying to imagine what Palm Beach County, Fla., independents will want in a presidential candidate nine months from now." Aren't primary voters the most rabidly partisan, extreme voters there are? Don't they typically lack this kind of foresight? Apparantly not, according to Brooks, whose analysis seems to agree with Adam Wolfson's, though Brooks makes the voters out to be more practical than Wolfson. If one combines Wolfson's and Brooks' analyses, one may infer that the media, originally having found their darling in Dean, finally listened to the more moderate voters and began to concentrate on "electability" as well. This, of course, sent Dean to his grave.

"Electability" does not seem so important to the primary voters or the media to make them want to try to compete in the South by choosing Edwards.

As for the less traditional media and regarding the GOP, Andrew Sullivan remains frenetically but boringly conflicted. I've never seen so much hand-wringing over the GOP's preference for traditional family arrangments and its willingness to create deficits to grow the economy. Has it really been that long since Ronald Reagan or do journalists have short memories? Apparantly Sullivan took some multiple choice exam that predicted he'd vote for any of the Democrats before Bush. The questions were worded on this exam in such an embarrassingly stupid manner that I can hardly beleive he thought it worthy to discuss. (For example, the first question asks whether I favor judges who will "outlaw abortion." Can it be that I'm not in favor of judges ruling on the question?) Sullivan's boyish exuberance is lapsing into annoying, moralistic outrage.