Newsweek Blogs

Moneyed Games: Olympics for the Super-Rich

Melinda Liu — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:23:56 GMT

Security clampdowns and traffic restrictions make Beijing's Games sound like a hassle, but you don't really have to sweat the small stuff. If you thought "Green Olympics" meant the color of money, we have a $20,000-dollar-a-day, August-only deal just for you. Jennifer Conrad explains how some VIP tour companies have applied a new twist to that old Deng Xiaoping aphorism. To get rich may be glorious; but to be rich is even better:

While most visitors to Beijing for the Olympics are preparing to take the subway to venues and wait in security lines, some people might find their Olympic experience a little more...comfortable.

Remote Lands, a tour company that offers super-high-end Asian travel packages -- such as luxury yacht trips to Borneo, or yak skiing in India -- is offering VIP security packages for the Olympics. They say that means expedited customs, helicopter rides that buzz past Beijing's notorious traffic, access to special traffic lanes, and security details of local police. Clients will be met at their airport gate (or private jet hanger!) in Beijing, then accompanied by staff trained in "terrorism management, first aid, evacuation situations, and fire safety" to their destinations.

The package doesn't come cheap, though, starting at $20,000 a day. Prices go up from there depending on the additional staff, motorcycle escorts, and other "incidentals" (as the company press release calls them).

One client asked for the hotel rooms to be redecorated, so Remote Lands is flying in special pillows, blankets, and toiletries from New York City before the family arrives. And since the rich and famous can't be bothered to program their own cell phones, for all of the clients, each family member and staff member will get a local cell phone pre-programmed with each other's numbers, their hotels and guides in China, AND the numbers of their contacts back home. "That's a lot of work," said a company rep.

A publicist I spoke to wouldn't name names, but she told me that the people using the service will be "high-profile, well-heeled, and in need of security wherever they travel." So far, they include a famous Hollywood producer, a billionaire European media mogul, and Wall Street financier--all traveling with their families. Two of the families will be arriving in their G5's.

As for the rest of us, the flat-screen TVs in new subway cars are kind of nice.

The Not-So-Telling Detail

Andrew Romano — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:51:04 GMT

Despite being a (cough) blogger, I'm the first to admit that our insatiable, Web-driven, 1,440-minute news cycle is annoying. Drudge. Halperin. Politico. The endless game of "gotcha." But this week, the Internet proved that what it buildeth up--namely, a story about Obama "refusing" to bestow his trademark fist pound on a young Ohioan--it can also teareth down. And, as Martha Stewart would say, that's a good thing.

Since the start of the modern media age, tiny, telling details--images or quotes that seem to substantiate our suspicions about a candidate--have repeatedly reoriented the narrative of entire campaigns. Muskie's crying convinced us he was unstable. Dukakis's helmet told us wasn't a credible Commander in Chief. And Kerry's predilection for Swiss on his cheesesteak screamed "snob." Once these details take hold, they're typically difficult to dislodge--even if they're not particularly accurate.

On February 5, 1992, for example, President George H.W. Bush, then running for reelection, visited the National Grocers Convention in Orlando, Fla., where he took particular interest in a mock-up of a checkout lane. Bush signed his name electronically. He swiped a quart of milk. "Amazed by some of the technology," he said. The lone newspaperman covering the event, Gregg McDonald, noted in his two-paragraph pool report that Bush had a "look of wonder" on his face at the time, but didn't feel the scene merited a mention in his own story for the Houston Chronicle. (A pool reportis a dispatch passed along to other journalists who cannot see the event because of space limitations.) The next day, however, Andrew Rosenthal of the New York Times transformed McDonald's description into a chiding front-pager about Bush's lack of familiarity with the details of ordinary American life. The "out of touch" theme quickly caught on. Soon, the Boston Globe quipped that someone should tell Bush, elected as vice president twelve years earlier, about video rentals, ATM cards and recycling as well, while the Times reminded its readers that "upper-income Americans" like the president "hardly experience the problems that weigh so heavily on American society"--a "fact" that "has dangerous political consequences."

The only hitch? The press got the incident all wrong. Turns out that the device that impressed the prez wasn't a regular scanner but rather a prototype that could "weigh groceries and read mangled and torn bar codes." After at least a week of media mockery, a handful of reporters reviewed a video of the event and concluded that Rosenthal--who wasn't even there--had blown it way out of proportion. "Bush acts curious and polite, but hardly amazed," wrote Newsweek. "It was prosaic, polite talk," added Time. "If anything, he was bored." But by then, it was too late. The country slipped into a recession, and the voters chose a blue-collar upstart who could "feel their pain" over the swell who didn't know his way around a supermarket.

I bring up the Bush incident because something remarkably similar happened--or started to happen--this week with Obama. On Tuesday, the Democratic nominee visited the Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio. In a report posted that afternoon, the pooler wrote that "not much [happened] in the way of news," but closed with this bit of color: "As he left, a boy tried to give him a fist bump. Obama said no. 'If I start that …' his voice trailed off." The fist pound, of course, has become something of an Obama signature in recent weeks, and when I read those lines, I knew that the press, starved as it is for actual news in these dog days of summer, would pick them up. I wasn't disappointed. First it was the Politico. Then Halperin jumped on board. By dinnertime, the chatterati had transformed Obama's refusal to knock knuckles with an adoring child into a metaphor for its new favorite narrative--Obama as a typical, calculating pol. "He just keeps moving to the center," wrote the Washington Post. "So conventional," added Maureen Dowd. "This makes us sad on so many levels," concluded New York magazine.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the checkout line. When Obama read the reports, he told his staff that they were wrong. So they demanded a review, and Sunlen Miller of ABC News, upon examining a video of the event, discovered that the Illinois senator was (gasp!) right. So she transcribed the actual exchange and uploaded it to ABC's blog:

Boy: Can you sign my hand?

Obama: If I start that…plus Mom might not be happy when she comes home. She’ll be like, ‘what is the dirt on your hand?’…see ya.

Boy: Can you sign it in pen so it will come off?

Then, the boy raised his fist to get Mr. Obama’s attention as he asked for a signature. Instead, he signed an autograph in crayon on pictures they had been drawing.

By the end of the day, New York magazine and the Washington Post had affixed corrections to their original items. Every major political blog in the country had posted a version of Miller's report. The Dowd column--the highest-profile record of Obama's "refusal"--was even scrubbed of any trace of fists bumping (or not not bumping, as it were). None of this was possible, of course, in 1992, when the press moved at the speed of newsprint--the immediate video review, the immediate correction, the immediate quieting of the cable chatter. By the time anyone reported that Bush wasn't actually "out of touch," it was too late. But the boy from Zanesville vanished before the vast majority of voters ever met him.

Now, if only we bloggers would stop salivating over this stuff in the first place...

Expertinent: Building a 'Grand New Party'

Andrew Romano — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:32:28 GMT

Expertinent is a regular Stumper column featuring interviews with experts on the news of the day.

It's not a particularly "grand" time to be a Republican. About 70 percent of Americans disapprove of President George W. Bush's performance. Party identification is at an all-time low. Experts expect the GOP to lose between four and seven seats in the Senate and 10 and 20 seats in the House--giving the Democrats their largest majorities in a generation. And John McCain hasn't led Barack Obama in a single poll since May 3.

Enter Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam. Named by David Brooks of the New York Times as "two of the most promising" of "an emerging "group of young and unpredictable rightward-leaning writers," they're editors at the Atlantic Monthly and co-authors of "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream," released earlier this week. The book--which Brooks calls "the best single roadmap of where the party should and is likely to head"--claims that Republicans can save themselves only by ditching the country club for Sam's Club and emphasizing policies that link economic security to family values. Will it work? Who knows. But at this point, anything is worth a try. Douthat and Salam spoke with Stumper this morning. Excerpts:

So, the Grand Old Party: what went wrong?
DOUTHAT: The broad argument in our book is that the GOP is, in many ways, a victim of its own success. The first half book is basically a history of how the Republican Party won working-class voters, who used to form the heart of the Roosevelt coalition. And we argue, I think fairly uncontroversially, that they won them on a series of issues--welfare, crime, taxes and the Cold War--that don't have nearly the salience today that they had when the Republican Party was coming together under Ronald Reagan. Welfare has been reformed fairly successfully. Crime rates have fallen dramatically. Marginal tax rates are considerably lower than they were in the late 1970s. And obviously the Soviet Union has ceased to exist. So the GOP is sort of at a crossroads where, particularly on domestic policy, its agenda doesn't map onto the concerns of working-class Americans the way it did in the '70s, the '80s and '90s.

People lay blame at the feet of President Bush. Obviously the historical backdrop has changed over time, but how much do the mistakes of the past eight years contribute to the current collapse of the GOP?
SALAM: There have been plenty of other books that have offered a litany of what went wrong with the Bush Administration. We don't disagree. But it's certainly true that 2000 presented Republicans with a rare opportunity. When you look at the rhetorical shifts that George W. Bush made in his campaign, it seemed like the public and certainly the conservative public was receptive to a broad shift in political orientation toward a domestic, reformist agenda. When you look at a lot of the policies that John McCain was pointing to, you saw a willingness to break with some conservative orthodoxy. But no one really seized that mantle, in part because 9-11 presented such an attractive opportunity to go back to the kind of rock-ribbed conservative fundamentals of the Reagan era--namely, national security, this time under the guise of terrorism rather than communism. There was an ability to draw on the classic tropes that this generation of conservative politicians was very familiar with. But I think there could've large-scale Republican realignment had they married that national-security politics to more meat on the bone domestically.

How can Republicans reclaim their majority and find their voice going forward?
DOUTHAT: We think they should create a pro-family party that doesn't abandon the party's commitment to social conservatism. The GOP should remain--and has to remain--a pro-life party. But a lot of the challenges faced by working-class Americans in the modern economy actually flow from issues of family breakdown. It's interesting. If you look at the marriage rates in the 1950s and 1960s across social classes, the upper-middle class, the working class and the poor all got married and divorced at about the same rate. The all had children in wedlock or out of wedlock at about the same rate. That's changed dramatically over the past 50 years. So upper-middle-class Americans are still behaving like bourgeois, 1950s surburbanites. They're getting married, they have low divorce rates, they're very unlike to have children out of wedlock. That's not true for the working class. What you see in the white working class, in fact, is a trajectory that parallels, in alarming ways, what the black working class went through in terms of collapsing marriage rates and out-of-wedlock birth rates in the 1960s and 1970s. So we argue that that's one of the biggest challenges facing the American working class, and it's at the root of a lot of the inequality and a lot of the economic anxiety that are big factors in this election year.

That's interesting. Most people typically think that poverty causes the breakdown of the family, but if I'm reading you correctly, you're saying the reverse.
DOUTHAT: It's not necessarily the reverse, but rather that you can't separate one from the other. It's a cyclical effect. Poverty creates stress that leads to family breakdown, and family breakdown creates stress that leads to poverty. If you look at, for instance, divorce rates in the United States and how divorce interacts with poverty in terms of splitting up incomes...

SALAM: ... It's very straightforward. When you have a young kid, the sort of supervision that raising a kid or more than one kid takes, it certainly helps to have more than one person. That's very basic and very familiar. But if we're talking about people who are going up the economic ladder, it's interesting because what family breakdown does is it makes mobility harder. Let's say you want to finish college. It becomes much, much harder to do that when you don't have another adult in the household. Unless you have those very thick networks that upper-middle-class people take for granted, you're going to have to go into the paid market for child care. Even renting an apartment. All of these workers who are going to Cape Cod, they actually have to rent rooms in hotels because they don't have the savings that they need in order to put a downpayment or make a deposit on an apartment that they rent for the summer. That's something that really exacerbates the cycle of poverty. And when you don't have family breakdown--when you have two parties who can contribute--then you see a very different picture.

DOUTHAT: The GOP is well-positioned to address a lot of these concerns, but it needs to broaden what it means to be a pro-family party.

SALAM: We're not trying to find victims, and we're not trying to point fingers. It's just that policy-makers are paying attention to these interactions across different silos. When you look at the New Deal, they actually had a pretty keen sense of how culture shapes economics and how economics shapes culture. There's this desire to silo these things off. That's Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" argument: "Oh, these are issues that are just designed to distract you from your real economic interests. Who really cares about marriage? Who really cares about abortion? Who really cares about family values?" And one of the core arguments of this book is, wait a second--actually, those cultural aspects of your life in fact relate to your economic well-being. It's the idea of a conservative politics that is culturally egalitarian and that recognizes government can play a role to help people on the first rungs of the economic ladder.

In your view, how do Democrats typically get this wrong? As a party, they typically seem more in tune, rhetorically at least, with the needs of the working class.
SALAM: Democrats are very reluctant to be judgmental about family structure. They are very uncomfortable saying there's an ideal family structure and that's what we should enshrine in our policies. A big part of what any president can do is occupy the bully pulpit and give a sense of the moral direction of our government and our society. Sure, that's not enough. But while some Democrats are doing a great job in terms of devising clever policies to aid working families, the problem is that clever policies are only going to take you so far when they're not happening in this broad framework about the value of family values.

But are there really any silver-bullet policies that government can implement to, you know, keep families together?
SALAM: No, not necessarily. But they can reduce some of those burdens and some of that stress. Our whole vision is saying "yes" to a less-regulated economy of free and open labor markets, but also saying "yes" to a government that sees including working class and poor people in the mainstream economy as a high priority. Here's an example: the government should see to it that your catastrophic medical care needs are taken care of. On health care we are actually fairly open to a lot of different possibilities, but the solution we like the most is having a broadly market-oriented system where once you pass a certain spending threshold, the government's going to kick in. For example, if you have a kid a who has cancer, who has a pre-existing condition, there's a recognition that you have to have some kind of social insurance over the entire population. Here's another: minimum wage. Having something like an increased minimum wage is actually going to discourage people from entering the economy. But having something like wage subsidies, where you're telling employers, "Look, we want these low-wage employees to have a living wage, but we're going to give you some amount of money to see to it that these guys are being paid $10 an hour. But you're not bearing the entire cost of that, and you're customers are not bearing the entire cost of that." That seems like a much shrewder strategy. Or even traffic. It seems like a really silly thing, but it actually puts a lot of strain on families when you consider the amount of time that's spent getting from place to place.

DOUTHAT: What we're trying to do in the book is less provide a 10-point plan for Republican domination than provide a pool of ideas that hopefully conservative candidates can draw on, whether in this election cycle or five to 10 years down the road.

Let's shift to the politics of this. In your ideal vision, what would the "Grand New Party" sound like?
DOUTHAT: It would sound in part like the early neoconservatives. Neoconservatism obviously became a dirty word in American politics during the debates over the war in Iraq. But we like the applied neoconservatism of the 1990s. Tommy Thompson's welfare reform in Wisconsin. Or Rudy Giuliani's crime-fighting policies in New York. Or even to a certain extent the "Contract with America," which, if you look back, was actually an incremental effort to make the tax system fairer to the middle and working class full of policies meant to make the welfare state work better. That's sort of the broad model that we're talking about--a politics that's interested in reforming the welfare state as well as shrinking it.

Do any Republicans get this?
SALAM: It's these Midwestern, Catholic governors we had in the 1990s, these guys who were the applied neoconservatives par excellence. These guys are really, really good models for where you'd want the party to be. People who were at the center--who were really socially conservative but who were also very solutions-oriented, very "roll up your shirt sleeves," and who were very plain-spoken. They were able to resonate with voters in the Republican L--in the South, in the Mountain States--but were also able to expand because they connected with suburban voters nationally. That's the kind of figure you'd want to see.

Do any current Republicans speak this language?
SALAM: You saw it in the Huckabee campaign--that's one possible model of someone who's using this very evangelical, populist language. We think there are some dangers with that and some things that are appealing. The fact that he was able to talk frankly about obesity and other ideas that connect with the public was really important, and that's part of being a governor from a border state. The danger was that he appeared to be a very sectarian and regional figure--which only would've reinforced the idea that Republicans, as their gains recede, are becoming a Southern, regional party. In that sense, Sarah Palin is probably even more promising. The fact that she's a mother, and a working mother, is something that really does resonate. Though she isn't someone who necessarily signs up to every aspect of our agenda, she's someone who has challenged the corruption of the conservative corruption in her state, which definitely maps onto this idea that you need a reformist brand of Republicans.

DOUTHAT: There are a lot of politicians who have gestured toward this sort of reformist Republicanism without there being a lot of policy substance behind it. Huckabee's campaign was a great example of that. We refer a lot in the book to the party of Sam's Club. It's the idea of a working-class conservatism. That's a line a we lifted from Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, who commented that the GOP "can't just be the party of the country club, it needs to be the party of Sam's Club." If you look at Pawlenty's rhetorical trajectory and the way he has presented himself in Minnesota politics, it broadly aligns with what we're talking. The difficulty with Pawlenty, as with Huckabee, is that there haven't been a lot of, frankly, ideas, policy ideas, for these people to latch on to. The big danger for the Republican Party--and also for the country, because you need two robust parties--is that as things go bad for Republicans, the savviest Republican politicians will just copy Democratic ideas. And they'll just say, "Well, I'm for that, too." Pawlenty's done that to some extent. To take the famous Phyllis Schlafly line from the Goldwater era, we need "a choice, not an echo." Republicans need to provide a choice to Americans. They need to change, but they can't just copy the Democrats. When they change, they need ideas of their own.

SALAM: You see a lot of defense politics right now. Pawlenty barely won reelection, so it's understandable that he's playing it as cautiously as he is. But the problem is that Republicans are going to keep playing defense until they frame some sort of larger, attractive policies. It's about which narratives make sense in the context of this historical environment, and which ones really do connect with the needs of this all-important group of voters.

What has to happen before Republicans, broadly-speaking, make this kind of transition? Do you need electoral disaster? Do you need a decade in the wilderness? Or can it be more, you know, willful?
DOUTHAT: I think it can happen earlier. If you look at the parallel moment for the Democrats, insofar as there was one, it was the late 1960s and early 1970s and then into the Carter era--the crisis of the old Democratic majority. That took arguably decades for the Democrats to find their way back. But nothing is predetermined in American politics. Everything happens a lot faster now. There's a lot more pressure, a lot more coverage. Also, that old Democratic majority was a lot stronger than the Republican majority that's cracking up now. So the old Democratic majority took a lot long to break up, so it was a lot easier for the Democrats to say, "Well, we don't need to change" and so on.

SALAM: When you look at the elections that we had in the 2000s, including 2002, it's amazing how well the Democrats performed, despite their lackluster messaging. They just have a tremendous amount of strength that's built on fundamental demographic facts about the country.So I'm a little less sanguine than Ross, especially if you have a victory this time around running a campaign that's basically Bush III. That's something people are very comfortable with. It's something that the network of analysts and consultants are very comfortable with. They're comfortable getting their policies talking points from the same place. They don't want to change, despite the fact that actually the landscape is radically different. Right now, Republicans have an economic message that's basically, "Hey, the economy's been great" or "Oil. We're going to dig for it in Alaska." That's not something that's going to be robust enough to challenge and counteract these strong, long-term Democratic advantages. So that's something that definitely worries me.

How does McCain fit into this landscape?
DOUTHAT: The trouble for McCain is that his broad overarching brand as a reformer, as someone who's challenged GOP orthodoxy, as someone who's broken with the party establishment--that's exactly the right brand for this year and it's exactly the right brand for the GOP. It's just that on the specific issues where McCain has a reformist record, they tend to be these boutique issues that don't connect as much with working- and middle-class Americans. You know, McCain is the champion of anti-tobacco legislation, he's the champion of campaign-finance reform. And now his big break on Republican orthodoxy--which he's walking back from--is global warming. That would actually raise the price of gas at a time when gas prices are skyrocketing. His problem has always been that he's not as good talking about kitchen-table issue--talking about health care, talking about education, talking about jobs. And if kitchen-table issues are what the Republican Party needs to address in the long-term, they're definitely what the Republican Party needs to address in a recession year. It's tough for him in that sense.

Especially, I think, because Obama is pretty skilled at speaking about economic issues and reaching out into Republican territory.
SALAM: Obama is someone who's incredibly, keenly intelligent. He's spent a lot of time in the trenches working with working-class people, and someone who's very good at weaving together a narrative that connects faith and family, the broader economic environment and the challenges that poses to working families.

DOUTHAT: If you look at the way Obama has talked about religion--he gave a speech on faith-based initiatives just the other day--this is a terrain that Republicans have traditionally owned: the intersection of churches with social stability in America. Obviously we think that's territory Republicans should continue to own, but obviously it's not territory that John McCain is very comfortable on. He's more comfortable talking about honor and duty and martial values than the role churches should play in fighting poverty. There are advantages for the Democrats in the personalities of the candidates and in the issues they tend to be interested in. McCain was the perfect Republican candidate, in a way, for 2000--for a time of economic good times when the country was in the mood to have a president who's main theme was shared sacrifice. That's what McCain is most comfortable talking about: everyone pulling together for a cause greater than themselves. And that's obviously a powerful political theme, and it contributes to his enduring popularity. But it's a less powerful theme in a recession year.

You don't sound particularly optimistic about McCain's chances.
DOUTHAT: His huge advantage is just trust and experience. That isn't going to go away, and there's not anything Obama can do about that, I think. If McCain pulls it out, it'll just be a matter of voters getting into the voting booth and deciding they can't entrust American foreign policy to someone with as little experience as Obama has. So I think that's McCain's biggest advantage. But the policy landscape may just be too unfavorable for him across the board.

It's all about Obama, then: can we trust him or not? McCain's almost the default choice.
SALAM: Absolutely.

The Scandal That is Alzheimer's Research

Sharon Begley — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:54:11 GMT

Of all the columns I’ve written, no topic has brought more agonized, heartfelt and desperate-sounding emails than Alzheimer’s disease. Back in 2004, I wrote three columns (when I was at The Wall Street Journal) on how one particular theory of what causes this awful disease—and therefore the best approach for treating it—has had the field in a headlock, censoring competing theories. That closed-mindedness, I quoted scientists as saying, had a lot to do with why there is not only no cure or preventive for Alzheimer’s, but not even a treatment that slows down the inexorable cognitive decline.

The emails, as you might expect, told me about loved ones who had been lost to Alzheimer’s, and expressed frustration, anger and fury that part of the reason for the lack of progress might be that scientists were not open-minded about any but their pet hypothesis.

This all came rushing back to me this week when Myriad Genetics, Inc., reported that a Phase 3 clinical trial (the last one before a company seeks FDA approval for a new drug) it had been testing for an experimental Alzheimer’s drug had failed. The drug, Flurizan, is called a “selective amyloid lowering agent,” or SALA. Amyloid is a peptide (part of a protein). The amyloid known as Aβ42 is—according to the dogma—the “primary initiator of neurotoxicity and amyloid plaque development in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients,” as Myriad puts it. And indeed, in human cells growing in lab dishes as well as in lab animals, Flurizan reduces levels of Aβ42.

But when Myriad gave it to people with early-stage Alzheimer’s, it didn’t help them a bit. We don’t know why. Maybe Flurizan did not reduce Aβ42 in the patients. Or maybe—and this would be disastrous for the field—it did reduce Aβ42 but that had no beneficial effect. If the latter, it is more proof that the amyloid dogma—Aβ42 causes Alzheimer’s, therefore get rid of Aβ42 and you’ll cure the disease—is wrong. I call it “disastrous” because a huge majority of the research and drug-development efforts in Alzheimer’s assumes that Aβ42 causes the disease and that getting rid of Aβ42 is the holy grail.

At the risk of being obnoxiously self-referential, let me re-cycle some of what I said about the amyloid dogma back in 2004:

“Beliefs about what causes this merciless disease have taken on such a religious fervor that one group is called tauists, after a protein called tau that forms 'neurofibrillary tangles' inside the neurons and, say these scientists, kills neurons responsible for memory and thought. Another is called baptists, after the [Aβ42] that forms plaques around brain neurons and, say its accusers, causes neuron-killing tau tangles or kills neurons directly, or both. Apostates think amyloid plaques sop up neurotoxic proteins along with poisonous metals such as zinc and copper, and that eliminating plaques could therefore harm patients. . . . [But] there are growing doubts that amyloid is guilty as charged. Autopsies of people with early-stage Alzheimer's show that the tangles form first, before plaques, in brain regions initially affected by the disease. 'If you look at the evidence, it's the tangles that cause neuronal degeneration, and they come first, before the amyloid,' says neurologist Patrick McGeer of the University of British Columbia. Another problem for the amyloid dogma, ... adds neurobiologist Nikolaos Robakis of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, is that autopsies of the brains of Alzheimer's victims show that 'plaques don’t correlate with neuronal death. The amyloid is here and the dead neurons are somewhere else.' . . . 'If amyloid were the answer,' says Dr. McGeer, 'the disease would have been solved by now.'

I’m afraid that’s still where things stand, four years after I wrote that. Now let me share a note I just got from a scientist who has long questioned the amyloid dogma:

“I couldn’t resist contacting you....not with glee [about the Myriad failure], instead sadness at how scientific narcissism [he means the focus on the amyloid hypothesis to the near-exclusion of everything else] fails every damn time. . . . As far as Flurizan is concerned, I am sure the amyloid contingent will make their excuses: blame the drug, the placebo group (for not falling fast enough!), the timing (clearly we need to start anti-amyloid therapy in utero!) and, ultimately, the species (humans simply are not as good responders as mice). However, at this stage, I sense that the heads are beginning to drop and the swagger has disappeared. . . . While my hope is that this will open the field to all manner of crazy hypotheses, my fear is that the excuses will be persuasive enough. At this point, everything that lowers amyloid in mice/cells has failed in human trials. Perhaps a coincidence? Maybe. However, the alternate is never really considered. All of this is not to say that I was right [that amyloid is not the cause of Alzheimer’s and therefore cannot be the target of drugs to treat it]. I still don't know exactly how amyloid fits into the puzzle. But betting the house on 00 in roulette is no way to conduct science. Trouble is, we mostly are not gambling with our own money or lives.”

No, they are gambling with the lives of patients now and in the future whose lives are being taken by Alzheimer's. On that depressing note, Happy 4th.

Veepwatch Special: The Historical View

Andrew Romano — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:12:15 GMT

To veep or not to veep? That is the question. During the pause between the primaries and the conventions, the chattering classes always get confused. (Or more confused, as the case may be.) One moment, every “strategist” with access to makeup and MSNBC is claiming that the black Evangelical comptroller of Clark County, Ohio would undoubtedly put the Republican ticket over the top. The next they’re citing facts and figures meant to prove that the pick, in the famous words of FDR No. 2 John Nance Garner, isn’t “worth a warm bucket of piss.” They’re like dieters complaining about calories as they inhale a Cinnabon. With extra frosting.

They should quit whining. Simply put, this year’s veepstakes is the most significant ever. Yes, the old caveats still apply. No one votes for second fiddle. No veep pick since LBJ has single-handedly swung his home state. In fact, no sidekick has ever triggered a bump of more than two percent in the national vote, and none has ever--sorry, Dick Cheney--boosted his boss to victory. But Barack Obama and John McCain are not your typical nominees.

At 72, McCain would be the oldest guy ever inaugurated for a first term--and nothing increases the importance of an understudy like an aging leading man. McCain admits as much. “I’m aware of enhanced importance of this issue given my age,” he’s said. Obama, meanwhile, would be one of the two or three least seasoned presidents in U.S. history. (Polls show that only half of Americans consider him experienced enough to lead.) Again, this makes a “presidential” partner politically essential. Citing Cheney and Al Gore as examples, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe revealed last week that Obama will choose someone “qualified to be president… who’ll be a partner in governing”--and not a geographical pander. In the end, neither McCain nor Obama can afford the “frosting” of, say, a Dan “Potatoe” Quayle. And if they’re taking this seriously, so should we. So speculate away.

An historical crib sheet on some top choices:

THE MCCAIN ARCHETYPES

1. The Jack Kemp: Mitt Romney
Like Kemp, Bob Dole's '96 pick, Romney is a former foe who would add economic-policy heft to the ticket.

2. The Spiro Agnew: Tim Pawlenty
Like Maryland's Agnew, the Minn. governor appeals to the center and right, and could help in a key region.

3. The Geraldine Ferraro: Sarah Palin
Ferraro helped Walter Mondale make history in '84; reformist, salt-of-the earth Alaska Governor Palin could counterprogram Obama.

4. The Dan Quayle: Bobby Jindal
Chosen for his youth, 41's veep was too lightweight; hot La. Governor Jindal, 37, may be simply too young.

5. The Joe Lieberman: Joe Lieberman
Would do for Mac what he did for Gore in '00--boost moderate cred, Jewish support, ticket diversity.

THE OBAMA ARCHETYPES

1. The Al Gore: Kathleen Sebelius
Like Gore, the Kans. governor wouldn't balance the ticket or offer geographical help, but she would reinforce its core theme of "change through unity."

2. The Lyndon B. Johnson: Hillary Clinton
Kennedy accepted his rival out of electoral necessity. That's the only reason BHO would take HRC.

3. The Lloyd Bentsen: Sam Nunn
Detached, youngish and ethnic, Dukakis tapped an older, white Southern senator. Obama could follow.

4. The John Edwards: Tim Kaine
Kerry's '04 pick was a fresh-faced, white Southerner with blue-collar appeal. The Virginia governor fits the bill.

5. The Dick Cheney: Tom Daschle
Like Cheney, Daschle is a campaign insider and D.C. pro who wouldn't add electoral votes but could help steer his green boss through the swamp.

The Filter: July 3, 2008

Andrew Romano — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:46:27 GMT

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

LOTS OF FIREWORKS, LITTLE MEAT
(James Rainey, Los Angeles Times)
My colleagues at Yahoo News and the Associated Press bring you this blockbuster in time for the holiday weekend: Americans would rather have Barack Obama than John McCain at their summer cookout. Yes, an online sample of 1,759 adults crowned Obama the weenie-roast king, 52% to 45%. With all the drivel fouling the campaign trail of late, I'm surprised the preferred barbecue guest wasn't "Neither." They don't have do-overs in the campaign season. But if they did, this is a week that would merit one. There was no real news -- just barely news and almost news. The mainstream media avoided some of it. But the rest found a place, partly because the Internet always has room, partly because the candidates are always ready to fill it.

IS BARACK A TYPICAL POL?
(Noam Scheiber, New Republic)
McCain abruptly made the contrast between his honor and Obama's cynicism the central theme of his campaign. "For John McCain, country first is how he has lived his life," read a "memo" released by strategist Steve Schmidt last Thursday. "We have seen Barack Obama forced to choose between principle and the interests of himself and his party. He has always chosen the latter."... To which the proper response for an Obama supporter should be: Right on! John McCain may win the contest over "who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest," as Rove wrote in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal. But that contest will have very little to do with who wins this fall's election. The easiest way to see this is to consider one of the most persistent poll results of the campaign so far: The percentage of voters who identify themselves as Democrats is eight to 15 points higher than the percentage who identify as Republicans. Even if the GOP were to somehow convince Americans that Obama was typical, they would have to paint McCain as phenomenally atypical to overcome this disadvantage.

THE FLIP-FLOP FALLACY
(Jonathan Chait, New Republic)
I think McCain's strategy is a little more potent than Noam gives it credit for. First, bad press is bad press. Noam argues that McCain is hitting Obama with the wrong line of attack, but the bottom line is that McCain's painting of Obama as a flip-flopper is producing a lot of skeptical coverage of Obama. Maybe it's not the exact kind of skeptical coverage that would be most damaging to Obama. But skeptical coverage of Obama of any sort is preferable for McCain to positive or neutral coverage of Obama. If people are reading or watching critical reports about Obama, they're going to think less of him. Second, I think a "flip-flopper" image is extremely damaging no matter what the general circumstances. A politician's perceived trustworthiness is the basic platform for his entire message. If the voters don't trust him, then they tend to discount everything he says about any topic at all. Noam says the more damaging accusation against Obama is that he's not "one of us." I agree. But if voters don't trust him, then they won't believe him when he explains that he's a Christian who really does love America. So the "flip-flopper" label, if it sinks in, can leech into other issues.

THE CANDIDATES AS HIGH-ROLLERS
(Michael Scherer and Michael Weisskopf, Time)
The casino craps player is a social animal, a thrill seeker who wants not just to win but to win with a crowd. Unlike cards or a roulette wheel, well-thrown dice reward most everyone on the rail, yielding a collective yawp that drowns out the slots. It is a game for showmen, Hollywood stars and basketball legends with girls on their arms. It is also a favorite pastime of the presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain. The backroom poker player, on the other hand, is more cautious and self-absorbed. Card games may be social, but they are played in solitude. No need for drama. The quiet card counter is king, and only a novice banks on luck. In this game, a good bluff trumps blind faith, and the studied observer beats the showman. So it is fitting that the presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, raked in so many pots in his late-night games with political friends. For centuries, the nation's political leaders have loved their games of chance... But even among this crowd, McCain and Obama are distinctive. For both men, games of chance have been not just a hobby but also a fundamental feature in their development as people and politicians. For Obama, weekly poker games with lobbyists and fellow state senators helped cement his position as a rising star in Illinois politics. For McCain, jaunts to the craps table helped burnish his image as a political hot dog who relished the thrill of a good fight, even if the risk of failure was high.

OBAMA, MCCAIN VIEW MOUNTAIN STATES AS PIVOTAL
(Amy Chozick and Elizabeth Holmes, Wall Street Journal)
Speaking near the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama pledged to create new incentives to motivate Americans to serve their country. His campaign has laid out a more-pressing proposal: to defeat John McCain in the Republican-leaning Mountain states. Although these states account for a small portion of electoral votes, they could make the difference in a tight race. Both presidential hopefuls have made the West a focus of their general-election strategies, with a particular emphasis on Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, states with independent-minded voters who have mostly mostly gone Republican in recent elections.

A DOSE OF DISCIPLINE FOR MCCAIN'S CAMPAIGN
(Mike Allen and Jonathan Martin, Politico)
The Sergeant has been promoted. Whenever Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) needed an answer to a political question during long days on buses and planes with reporters during the GOP primary, he would turn to a linebacker of a campaign adviser. “Sergeant Schmidt?” McCain would ask with an impish grin, turning to the cueball-headed, barrel-chested Steve Schmidt for input. Often, Schmidt, his gaze set on his BlackBerry and his thumb relentlessly working its trackball, would barely look up when grunting his answer. In turn, McCain would threaten his serious, unsmiling and on-message senior adviser with demotion to corporal. Now, though, a year to the day after he laid off dozens of staffers in the campaign’s first major shakeup, McCain has again turned to his favorite NCO, giving Schmidt a battlefield promotion to commanding general at a moment when his campaign needed another dose of discipline... During a meeting at the Bush reelection campaign, senior adviser Karl Rove gave him the nickname “Bullet” because of his bald head and because of his seemingly lethal impact. But despite his intimidating visage, Schmidt has inspired a legion of 20- and 30-something loyalists who’ve learned dawn-to-midnight, smashmouth politics at his knee.

OBAMA PICKS UP FUNDRAISING PACE
(Michael Luo and Christopher Drew, New York Times)
In the wake of Senator Barack Obama’s decision last month to bypass public financing for the general election, his campaign is embarking on a spree of pricey fund-raising events across the country. As Mr. Obama shattered fund-raising records over the last year and a half and collected nearly $300 million, much of the attention has been on his army of small contributors over the Internet. He cited that broad base of small-dollar donors in justifying his decision to reverse his pledge to take part in the public financing system if his opponent did as well. But Mr. Obama’s stepped-up schedule of big-money fund-raisers — the campaign has more than a dozen events planned over the next two weeks — showcases a formidable high-dollar donor network that is gaining more heft with an influx of former supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

MORE: Can Barack Buy the Presidency? (Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal)
Mr. Obama has used his money advantage to launch the air war. Starting June 20, Mr. Obama spent $4.3 million for 10 days of a televised, biographical ad covering 18 states. Mr. McCain countered on Monday with roughly $2.1 million for a week of ads in 11 states. Mr. Obama has now volleyed back, expanding his buy to 21 states for two additional weeks at a cost of $15 million – half for his original bio ad and half for a new ad on welfare reform. But early television may not be as smart as it appears. Is it wise for Mr. Obama to spend almost as much on ads in three weeks in July as he raised in May? His fund raising peaked in February. June's fund-raising numbers, due in mid-July, will show whether his current pace of spending can be sustained. And TV becomes less effective in a general election, since so much free media attention is focused on the presidential candidates, whose actions have a larger impact than ads... Mr. Obama may be overreaching by running ads in North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska and North Dakota – states Republicans won by comfortable margins in recent years. It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen.

MCCAIN WORKS THE ROOM, ONE TOWN HALL AT A TIME
(Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times)
More than any major-party candidate in modern times, McCain is relying on low-key question-and-answer sessions, rather than boisterous rallies and set speeches, as the linchpin of his campaign."It's never been done before, so no one knows if it will work," said Todd Harris, a Republican strategist who served as spokesman for McCain's unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. "But we've never had a candidate like John McCain." Aides and supporters say the freewheeling sessions showcase the Arizona senator as a straight-talking candidate who is an expert on policy issues and ready to be president. It also lets him display a sense of humor that, they admit, is more appealing than his formal speeches, which can sound stilted. Even some GOP leaders have panned his delivery. Working the room like a lounge act, McCain clearly enjoys the banter and the intellectual challenge of mixing it up with voters. Although many supporters lob softballs, McCain also engages with critics and cranks in the crowd... That worries some supporters. They say McCain's unstructured sessions often overshadow efforts to communicate a single, clear message each day. Worse, they fear, the routine events now only produce national news when he makes an error. Indeed, McCain has made his worst gaffes during town hall meetings.

OBAMA DRAWS ON LESSONS FROM CHICAGO STREETS TO PROPEL CAMPAIGN
(Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Bloomberg News)
When Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign, he called his three years as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s ``the best education I ever had.'' He's putting those lessons to good use in his drive for the White House, say many of those who worked with him then. The same tactics Obama honed in mobilizing people to agitate for neighborhood improvements he's now using to draw millions of volunteers and voters to his campaign. His experiences with a church-based group also helped shape his views on individual responsibility and the role of government, according to dozens of people who knew him 20 years ago. "The idea he expresses now, that people are linked by a common purpose'' is an effort to transfer those lessons `"from a neighborhood to a nation,'' says Mike Kruglik, 66, who trained Obama and worked with him from 1985 to 1988. Obama, 46, an Illinois senator and the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, often cites his days organizing people in the shadow of shuttered steel mills as evidence he understands grassroots activism and to underline his distrust of bureaucracies. The setting for his political education was Chicago's South Side, a sprawling expanse of predominantly black and economically depressed communities.

McCain's Right-Hand Men

Andrew Romano — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:06:29 GMT

Sane voters typically don't pay attention when a presidential campaign shakes up its staff. And most of the time, they're right to tune out. Except when it comes to John McCain. Over the past eight years, three Republican operatives have served as the Arizona senator's right-hand men, guiding him through a pair of presidential runs--and determining, to a remarkable degree, the tone and direction of his career for the duration of their tenure at the top. Now, 10 days after several aides warned McCain that he "was in danger of losing the presidential election," he's added a fourth name to the list: Steve Schmidt. Here, we explore how McCain's previous gurus shaped his candidacies--and anticipate where Schmidt will take him next.

The Maverick: John Weaver

Everything we now consider "quintessentially McCain" can be traced back to him. A lanky, brooding, volatile Texan, Weaver convinced the longshot Arizona senator to challenge George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000--and, as top strategist, lovingly oversaw every aspect of that year's "maverick" campaign. "Weaver's the guy who stayed on top of him [and] said, 'Not only should you run but I have a plan to get you there," McCain spokesman Howard Opinksy told the Washington Post at the time. Among his ideas: McCain's trademark "town hall meetings," which the candidate recently called "the most important part, in my view, of the process"; the "Straight Talk Express," named over a bottle of merlot; and freewheeling, unfettered access for reporters. Weaver's mantra: "Let McCain Be McCain." Circa February 2000, Bush had 174 staffers. McCain got by with 80--none of whom, thanks to Weaver, was allowed to "handle" the candidate. McCain was droll, darkly humorous, fiercely competitive and quick to anger, and so was Weaver (in 2000, he smashed three Nokia phones). That became the tone of the campaign. The strategist despised Karl Rove, a colleague from Texas who once "nearly destroyed John emotionally" over a billing dispute, according to his wife Rhonda, and positioned McCain, the outsider, in opposition to Bush. "In the past I've worked for a lot of guys who want us to tell them what to believe," Weaver told the Post in 2000. "It's just a chase for money. You feel dirty, like a hired gun." But no more, he said. "I'm on the side of the angels in this one." After Rove's dirty tricks sunk McCain in South Carolina, Weaver left the Republican Party, registered as a Democrat in Manhattan and briefly consulted for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The Establishmentarian: Terry Nelson

McCain's second White House run effectively began in 2002, when Weaver returned to orchestrate the senator's public reconciliation with Bush and make amends (behind the scenes) with his old nemesis Rove. It was clear from the start that the tone and scope of "McCain 2008: The Sequel" would be more generalissimo than guerrilla. McCain and Weaver spent 2005, for example, courting the Pioneers, Rangers and Super Rangers who each helped collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for Bush in 2000 and 2004. But the real sign that McCain's boat-rocker days were over came on March 19, 2006, when Weaver hired Terry Nelson to run McCain's Straight Talk America PAC (he later became McCain's campaign manager). Political director of Bush's 2004 reelection bid, Nelson was, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer political columnist Dick Polman, "one of the most notorious hardball specialists of the Republican establishment." Nelson had, among other things, produced the famous, race-baiting Tennessee attack ad in which a semi-naked blond bimbo told Democratic senatorial candidate Harold Ford--an African-American--to "Call [her]." He'd run the GOP's massive negative ad blitz in advance of the 2006 midterm elections. He'd working alongside one of the principals behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He'd played a key role in helping DeLay and his money men allegedly evade a Texas law that bans the use of corporate money in Texas campaigns. And he'd overseen the New England operative convicted and jailed for his criminal role in a successful effort to jam Democratic party phone lines on Election Day 2002. The message, of course, was that McCain was playing to win this time. To that end, Nelson oversaw the creation of a behemoth organization modeled on Bush-Cheney '04, with a $154 million budget and scads of overpaid consultants and state directors. The only hitch? Nelson was spending money faster than McCain--whose full-throated support for comprehensive immigration reform had enraged the Republican base--could raise it. By July of last year, the campaign had less than $1 million the bank, and Nelson tendered his resignation to a furious McCain. "McCain never bonded with Terry Nelson," a longtime friend of the senator told the Post at the time. "They just didn't click." Weaver resigned the same day.

The Budgeter: Rick Davis

With his bloated, formerly unstoppable campaign in shambles--and only six months to go until the Iowa caucuses--McCain turned to longtime staffer Rick Davis for help. But although Davis joined the McCain camp in 1998--at the same time as Weaver--he was never much of a maverick. A former lobbyist and friend of lobbyists, Davis wore a jacket and tie at all times. He was even-keeled and charming. He was, in other words, a "creature of the political mainstream," as David Brooks once put it. Unsurprisingly, Davis and Weaver, the romantic renegade, didn't get along--to put it mildly. It's "a mutual hatred that is total, absolute and blinding," one McCainiac told Brooks. Until the collapse, McCain was loyal, in part, to each camp--part insider, part outsider. But with no money and no infrastructure, the candidate no longer had the luxury of divided loyalties, and Davis, a steady manager, experienced finance man and close confidant of Cindy McCain, won out. Recognizing that the Bush model was no longer feasible, Davis immediately cut costs, eliminating jobs, dumping well-paid consultants, renegotiating outstanding bills and asking any remaining loyalists to work for free. Tellingly, McCain's slick, $10,000-a-day "Straight Talk Express" was traded in for a $10,000-a-month jalopy. "It’s not as nice a bus," Davis told the New York Times last October. "It just broke down with an alternator problem.” But the bus--and Davis's back-to-basics budgeting--got McCain where he needed to go. During the second half of 2007, the candidate focused relentlessly on town hall meetings--especially in New Hampshire, which had put him on the political map with a primary win in 2000. Traveling the state in a borrowed SUV, McCain didn't shy away from his controversial view on immigration or his support for the surge in Iraq—even when he slipped to single digits in the polls. It paid off. On Jan. 8, McCain finally won his second Granite State primary and immediately vaulted to the front of the GOP pack. "The greatest political comeback in history," Schmidt, then a senior adviser, told NEWSWEEK.

The Rove: Steve Schmidt

Davis's lean-and-mean, last-resort strategy worked for McCain in the primaries. But it's proven to be a bad fit for the battle with Barack Obama--i.e., the best-funded, best-organized Democrat in modern political history. Blessed with a four-month headstart, Davis has done little to establish a consistent message, boost sluggish fundraising or shape an efficient organization, and his cash-first mentality led McCain to (counterproductively) deliver speeches on energy reform in Houston and offshore drilling in Santa Barbara because he happened to be raising money nearby. By June, insiders and top GOP officials were growing "increasingly uneasy about the direction of the McCain presidential campaign." "McCain’s campaign seems not to have a game plan," veteran republican operative Ed Rollins told the Politico just this morning. "I don’t see a consistent message. As someone who has run campaigns, this campaign is not running smoothly." In response, McCain has now put Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations--communications, scheduling and basic political strategy--and left Davis to do what he does best: manage the money. The shakeup comes a year to the day after Weaver and Nelson departed.

So what should we expect from Schmidt? A bald, barrel-chested "partisan pugilist" who labored under Karl Rove on Bush's 2004 bid--he also ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign--McCain's new guru "speaks in pre-fabricated, consumable, sharp morsels," according to Marc Ambinder. "McCain has learned from Schmidt that it's OK not to be a referee, that it's OK not to play the judge, that it's OK to draw contrasts with your opponents." In other words, he's learned to be an effective (if more traditional) Republican presidential candidate. Schmidt, 37, lacks his predecessors' deep emotional ties to the boss, so he's more likely to assess (and correct) the candidate's weaknesses with the objective eye of an outsider. That in mind, expect tighter message discipline from McCain--two other Rove vets, Nicole Wallace and Greg Jenkins, have joined McCain's communications team--and crisper, more consistent attacks on Obama, whom the campaign plans to paint as an unprincipled opportunist (in contrast to McCain, who "puts his country first"). Think more "professional." After all, it was Bush's Brain who gave Schmidt his nickname: "Bullet."

Will it help? Who knows. That said, if McCain is still trailing Obama by six points in the polls at the end of the summer, don't be surprised if he calls on John Weaver to, you know, recapture the magic of 2000.

The Obama Veepwatch, Vol. 5: Kathleen Sebelius

Andrew Romano — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:19:48 GMT

In which Stumper examines the Democratic nominee's possible--and not-so-possible--vice-presidential picks. (Previous McCain installments: Bobby Jindal; Mitt Romney; Charlie Crist; Tim Pawlenty; Rob Portman. Previous Obama installments: Ted Strickland; Jim Webb; Wes Clark; Hillary Clinton.)

Name: Kathleen Sebelius
Age: 60
Education: Trinity Washington University, University of Kansas (Master of Public Administration)
Resume: Former four-term Kansas state representative, former Kansas insurance commissioner, current two-term Kansas governor

Source of Speculation: Obama himself. Speaking to the FOX affiliate in Missouri on Monday, the Democratic nominee was effusive--to put in mildly--in his praise for Sebelius. "I love Kathleen Sebelius," he said. "I think she is as talented a public official as there is right now. Integrity. Competence. She can work with all people of all walks of life." At which point the Illinois senator stopped himself, sensing, it seemed, that he'd gone too far. "But I promised that I am not going to say anything about my vice president," he added, "until I actually introduce my vice president." The blogosphere, of course, called this a "hint."

Backstory: Hint or not, the Great Mentioner has been mentioning Sebelius as potential White House material at least since 2004--and not only as vice president. After John Kerry's bruising loss, observers started to speculate about a 2008 presidential bid, and two years later the White House Project cited Sebelius as one of eight plausible female candidates for the upcoming election. Ultimately, only one of those pols--Hillary Clinton--actually entered the ring, which pretty much prevented Sebelius from even considering a campaign of her own. But the veep buzz began immediately. By April 2006, "rumors of her potential place on the 2008 Democratic Presidential ticket as a Vice Presidential nominee [were already] flying." Less than two years later, she was chosen by Congressional leaders to deliver the official Democratic response to President George W. Bush's 2008 State of Union address--a sure sign of her rising-star status within the party. The next day, Sebelius endorsed Obama, and her stock rose as he marched to the nomination. By May, the Washington Post was listing her as Obama's top veep prospect. For her part, Sebelius has only stoked the flames, cleverly highlighting the strength she would bring to the ticket by referring to herself as an "Ohio girl" and praising Obama's "Kansas values" earlier this month. But more on that in a minute.

The odds: Strong, but far from a sure thing. In 1992, Democratic nominee Bill Clinton defied the conventional wisdom and chose Al Gore as his running mate. The point wasn't balance or geographical gain. Like Clinton--who would have won Tennessee without a Volunteer State senator on his ticket--Gore was a white, Southern, baby boomer centrist without a whole lot of foreign-policy expertise on his CV. Instead, Clinton was aiming to double-down on his core message of forward-looking, generational change--and Gore reinforced the theme. Sebelius is this year's Gore. She's hardly the "old white pro" that the chatterati say Obama must choose, and there's no chance she'll deliver Kansas, where Bush won by 25 percent in 2004 and McCain currently leads by at least 12. But she'd probably do more to reinforce the core rationale of Obama's candidacy--you know, the whole "change through post-partisan unity" spiel--than any other contender. Plus she'd add a dose of much-needed executive experience to the mix.

Here's the pitch. Superficially, Sebelius screams "change." She is, of course, a woman, which would automatically add to the historic weight of Obama's ticket, generate a ton of positive coverage and possibly appeal to Hillary holdouts. A Democrat, she was twice elected governor--first by eight points, then by 17--of a deeply Republican state, where she still enjoys a 62 percent approval rating. Her popularity and electoral success in a region where Democrats need to do better nicely echoes Obama's pledge to transform the map in the fall, sending a signal that Democrats are serious about competing for Republican votes. Added bonuses: a Catholic, Sebelius grew up in the Buckeye State as the daughter of fondly remembered former Governor John Gilligan. Hence "Ohio girl." And who better than the governor of Kansas--where Obama's mother was born and raised--to reinforce the heartland side of Obama’s heritage? Hence "Kansas values."

Ultimately, though, Sebelius's main selling point is substantive: of all Obama's veep prospects, she has by far the strongest record of actually practicing the sort of post-partisan politics that the nominee is so fond of preaching. To win in Kansas in 2002--a state where Republican and unaffiliated voters outnumber Democrats nearly three to one--Sebelius tapped retired Cessna executive John Moore, a registered Republican, to run as her lieutenant governor, and by 2006, she'd convinced the former chairman of the state Republican Party, Mark Parkinson, to switch parties and take over the job. (She also converted the state attorney general--among others.) As governor, Sebelius has pulled off the near-impossible trick of reaching across the aisle to harness legislative consensus for her bread-and-butter agenda without compromising her progressive ideals--long thought anathema to Kansans--or sacrificing her popularity. In 2005, for example, she recruited a slim majority of lawmakers to support an additional $500 million in school funding, and more recently convinced the legislature to uphold her environmentally-motivated veto of a bill green-lighting the construction of carbon-belching coal plants--"a stance," says the Huffington Post's Sam Stein, "that a decade ago would have amounted to political suicide." Meanwhile, Sebelius has risked her skin by opposing the death penalty, vetoing numerous measures meant to restrict abortion access and repeatedly confronting President Bush--and lived to tell the tale. This is precisely the blend of competence, consensus and toughness that Obama is seeking to achieve as president. He could do worse than to choose a partner who's proven that she can walk the walk.

Sebelius, of course, is not without her drawbacks. Although the prospect of a putting a woman in White House would excite some Clintonites, others would see another female cutting ahead of Hillary in line for the Oval Office as an unconscionable insult, and the pick could end up further dividing Democrats. Obama's most obvious weakness is the relative thinness of his resume--particularly on matters of foreign policy--compared with John McCain, so recruiting someone with even less national-security cred could be risky. After her State of Union rebuttal bombed--"The speech was vague and fuzzy, the delivery nervous and halting," Ezra Klein has written--some insiders concluded that she wasn't polished enough for the national stage. Despite the fact the Sebelius is personally pro-life and has presided over an 8.5 percent drop in abortions as governor, her staunch opposition to statewide anti-abortion measures has already earned her some flack from conservatives, who would seek to make abortion a wedge issue were she to join Obama's ticket. Finally--and most controversially--the image of Sebelius and Obama side-by-side might make some Americans, well, uncomfortable. "She's a bit older than Obama, but not old enough to be maternal," a Democratic operative with ties to organized labor told New York magazine's John Heilemann earlier this week. "And she is quite attractive. They'd look too much like a couple together. [Putting her on the ticket] would risk evoking on a subconscious level every American trope about miscegenation — a recurrent, threatening theme throughout our cultural and political history... And that's exactly the kind of anxiety you do not want to raise in white working-class men — the fear that this handsome, charismatic black guy is after their women.”

Incendiary, yes. Impossible to prove, absolutely. But crazy? Maybe not. One thing's for sure: Obamas team is too savvy and too calculating not to take this kind of consideration seriously. Which may mean that when it comes to change, Sebelius could wind up being too much of a good thing.

True or False: We Need a Wartime President

Andrew Romano — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:59:08 GMT

Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

Answer: False. At least according to NEWSWEEK columnist Fareed Zakaria. A must-read excerpt from his contribution to this week's "Big Ideas" edition of the magazine:

America (and before it, Britain) has felt it was "at war" when the conflict threatened the country's basic security—not merely its interests or its allies abroad. This is the common-sense way in which we define a wartime leader, and by that definition the politicians in charge during World Wars I and II—Wilson, Lloyd George, Roosevelt, Churchill—are often described as such. It's not a perfect definition. The United States has been so far removed from most conflicts that even World War I's effects could be described as indirect (incorrectly in my view). But it conjures up the image of a threat to society as a whole, which then requires a national response.

By any of these criteria, we are not at war. At some level, we all know it. Life in America today is surprisingly normal for a country with troops in two battle zones. The country may be engaged in wars, but it is not at war. Consider as evidence the behavior of our "war president." Bush recently explained that for the last few years he has given up golf, because "to play the sport in a time of war" would send the wrong signal. Compare Bush's "sacrifice" to those made by Americans during World War II, when most able-bodied men were drafted, food was rationed and industries were commandeered to produce military equipment. For example, there were no civilian cars manufactured in the United States from 1941 to 1945.

Of course, there are people, including Bush, who would argue that we are at war even in this deeper sense. In its June 23 issue, Fortune magazine asked Sen. John McCain what the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy was. He took a while to answer—an 11-second pause, by Fortune's count—but then said, "Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence."

It is by now overwhelmingly clear that Al Qaeda and its philosophy are not the worldwide leviathan that they were once portrayed to be. Both have been losing support over the last seven years. The terrorist organization's ability to plan large-scale operations has crumbled, their funding streams are smaller and more closely tracked. Of course, small groups of people can still cause great havoc, but is this movement an "existential threat" to the United States or the Western world? No, because it is fundamentally weak. Al Qaeda and its ilk comprise a few thousand jihadists, with no country as a base, almost no territory and limited funds. Most crucially, they lack an ideology that has mass appeal. They are fighting not just America but the vast majority of the Muslim world. In fact, they are fighting modernity itself...

We are in a struggle against Islamic extremism, but it is more like the cold war than a hot war—a long, mostly peacetime challenge in which a leader must be willing to use military power but also know when not to do so. Perhaps the wisest American president during the cold war was Dwight Eisenhower, and his greatest virtues were those of balance, judgment and restraint. He knew we were in a contest with the Soviet Union, but—at a time when the rest of the country was vastly inflating the threat—he put it in considerable perspective. Eisenhower refused to follow the French into Vietnam or support the British at Suez. He turned down several requests for new weapons systems and missiles, and instead used defense dollars to build the interstate highway system and make other investments in improving America's economic competitiveness. Those are the kinds of challenges that the next president truly needs to address.

In a sense, the warriors are pessimists. In the old days they were scared that communists would destroy America. Today they rail that Al Qaeda and Iran threaten our way of life. In fact, America is an extremely powerful country, with a unique and extraordinary set of strengths. The only way that position can truly be eroded is by its own actions and overreactions—by unwise and imprudent leadership. A good way to start correcting the errors of the past would be to recognize that we are not at war.

READ THE REST HERE.

The Filter: July 2, 2008

Andrew Romano — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:04:19 GMT

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

MCCAIN GAME PLAN WORRIES INSIDERS
(David Paul Kuhn, Politico)
Four months have passed since John McCain effectively captured the party nomination, and the insiders are getting restless. Top GOP officials, frustrated by what they view as inconsistent messaging, sluggish fundraising and an organization that is too slow to take shape, are growing increasingly uneasy about the direction of the McCain presidential campaign. While the practice of second-guessing presidential campaign decisions is a quadrennial routine, interviews with 16 Republican strategists and state party chairmen — few of whom would agree to talk on the record — reveal a striking level of discord and mounting criticism about the McCain operation... Some Republican officials who spoke to Politico noted that there is still time for the campaign to find its footing and that no campaign is without its detractors. But the bulk of those interviewed expressed serious concern about what has appeared to be an aimless campaign so far, one that has failed to take advantage of a four-month head start on Democrats and has showed little sign of gaining traction.

OBAMA WIN OFFERS BRAND AMERICA A GLOBAL LIFT
(Frederick Kempe, Bloomberg News)
The U.S. would profit globally from a failed Obama presidency more than it would from a successful McCain presidency. That's the sort of provocative, but plausible, statement that lies at the heart of the famous Oxford Union debates. Disagree? Then take it up with Kunal Basu, an Indian-born, U.S.- educated, Oxford University professor who examines how corporate reputations are made and broken. He argues that America's badly damaged brand around the world, one that has changed the course of human history, has never been about its military superiority, its economic-growth rates or even its innovative spirit. "Where the U.S. has really been on the leading edge has been not technology but morality,'' he says. Its very existence has been constructed around freedom of religion, speech and other individual choices, and the ground-breaking ideal that all humans were created equal. "Now it has the chance to re-establish itself there again,'' he says. ``The fact that the most powerful nation in the world could again be the most moral would be transformative. The world needs it.'' Reputation, a matter of the most enormous value for companies and individuals alike, is hard to establish but easy to lose. The same is true of countries.

WHO'S SMEARING WHOM?
(James Kirchick, Politico)
The only obstacle between Barack Obama and the presidency is the mountain of smears that will no doubt come his way. That’s the narrative that Obama supporters — and his swooning chroniclers in the mainstream media — would have us believe. Obama himself set up a website, fighthesmears.com, correcting some e-mail chain letters that allege he “can’t produce his birth certificate,” is “secretly a Muslim” and that he “won’t say the Pledge of Allegiance.” In May, Newsweek published a cover story confirming the Obama campaign’s fears, declaring that “the Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968.” Writers Evan Thomas and Richard Wolfe concluded that the 2008 presidential election will be no different. “It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as ‘the other’ — as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.” But has it been a “sure bet?” Not really. Thus far, no one with any serious affiliation to John McCain's campaign has resorted to the alleged “scare” tactics in which Republicans — and, apparently, only Republicans — have been perfecting since Richard Nixon was first elected. On the contrary, if the past few months have showed us anything, it’s that the Obama campaign is the one dealing in crude smears.

OBAMA SEEKS BIGGER ROLE FOR RELIGIOUS GROUPS
(Jeff Zeleny and Michael Luo, New York Times)
Senator Barack Obama said Tuesday that if elected president he would expand the delivery of social services through churches and other religious organizations, vowing to achieve a goal he said President Bush had fallen short on during his two terms. “The challenges we face today — from saving our planet to ending poverty — are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Mr. Obama said outside a community center here. “We need an all-hands-on-deck approach.” Some Democrats have previously backed similar efforts, but Mr. Bush’s version, a centerpiece of his first-term agenda, has been a lightning rod for criticism from those concerned about the separation of church and state and those who argued that Mr. Bush had used it to further a conservative political agenda. In embracing the same general approach as Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama ran the political risk of alienating those of his supporters who would prefer that government keep its distance from religion. But Mr. Obama’s plan pointedly departed from the Bush administration’s stance on one fundamental issue: whether religious organizations that get federal money for social services can take faith into account in their hiring. Mr. Bush has said yes. Mr. Obama said no.

OBAMA CAMP SIGNALS ROBUST APPROACH ON IRAN
(Daniel Dombey and Edward Luce, Financial Times)
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is the biggest threat facing the world, according to one of Barack Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers. He also signalled that the US Democratic presidential candidate would push Europe to agree tougher sanctions against Tehran. In an interview with the Financial Times, Anthony Lake, a former US national security adviser who has worked with Mr Obama since the start of his campaign, also urged the US to learn lessons from its traumatic withdrawal from Vietnam regarding pulling out of Iraq. “The most dangerous crisis we are going to face potentially in the next three to 10 years is if the Iranians get on the edge of developing a nuclear weapon,” he said. “If I were the Europeans I would much rather put on the table more sanctions, together with bigger carrots, and have that negotiation than I would face that crisis down the road.” In recent weeks, the issue of Tehran’s nuclear programme has gained prominence as speculation has mounted about a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

THE END OF WES CLARK'S VP CAMPAIGN
(Steve Kornacki, New York Observer)
Clark’s defenders have a point, but in the picture, the details of the argument aren’t what’s important. The real significance of this week’s controversy – however unfair and unjust it is – is that it pretty much ensures that Clark won’t be on the Democratic ticket this fall, something that seemed a very real possibility beforehand. And Clark, almost certainly, would not have lived up to his potential as a running-mate. That is the story of Clark’s political career, which began sometime in the early part of this decade, when he began toying with a 2004 presidential campaign. On paper, then as now, he seemed the perfect face for a Democratic Party whose leaders have all too often been caricatured by the right as national security weaklings, eager to appease aggressors and frightened of using force. What better antidote to this poisonous perception than an actual military general, a man who oversaw a successful war and Kosovo and who spent three years as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander?

HOW BUSH RATINGS COMPLICATE MCCAIN'S PRESIDENTIAL FIGHT
(John D. McKinnon, Wall Street Journal)
President Bush's record unpopularity is playing an unprecedented role in the 2008 campaign, complicating John McCain's task among key constituencies. Mr. Bush received a 66% disapproval rating in The Wall Street Journal/NBC poll for June, tying his own record for the highest ever for any president in the Journal/NBC poll. The previous highs were a 56% rating for Mr. Bush's father in late 1992, and a 50% score for President Clinton in 1993. In the long-running Gallup Poll, Mr. Bush's disapproval rating reached 69% this spring -- a record going back to the Truman administration.

OBAMA GOT DISCOUNT ON A HOME LOAN
(Joe Stephens, Washington Post)
"Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. ... Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates. ...Compared with the average terms offered at the time in Chicago, Obama's rate could have saved him more than $300 per month. Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said the rate was adjusted to account for a competing offer from another lender and other factors... The couple wanted to step up from their $415,000 condo. They chose a house with six bedrooms, four fireplaces, a four-car garage and 5 1/2 baths, including a double steam shower and a marble powder room. It had a wine cellar, a music room, a library, a solarium, beveled glass doors and a granite-floored kitchen... Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, has no mortgages on properties he owns with his wife, Cindy, who is a multimillionaire."

THE THREE GEOGRAPHIES
(Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill, Politico)
We believe Americans' political perspective — if not their final voting behavior — is largely shaped not so much by their state but, rather, by the type of place they reside in. Defining an area are factors such as how many people are homeowners, take transit and have children living at home, as well as the preponderance of middle-class households and the extent of economic and racial diversity. We believe the most effective breakdown of how Americans live can be seen in three basic geographic forms: the urban, suburban and small town/rural. These geographies, although not uniform across the country, show significant differences in almost all major characteristics, including voting behavior. Even when voting for the same party, residents of these different geographies often do so with different motivations. Democrats in the small cities and towns of the Great Plains, for example, closely follow issues related to agricultural and infrastructure policies, including energy development, that help expand economic opportunities. In contrast, urban politics in places such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco tend to have a far greener tinge and to be concerned with social issues such as gay marriage.

Train Your Mind, Change Your DNA

Sharon Begley — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:13 GMT

Yeah, I know that headline echoes yesterday's, but I can't help it: we have now moved beyond studies showing that mental training alters the structure and function of the brain to studies showing that it alters the structure and function of our genes.

Regular readers may have noticed that I’m not a big fan of the “my genes made me do it” school of life, whether “it” is acting in a certain way (as genes “for” shyness or neuroticism supposedly make you do) or developing a particular disease. As I’ve written, the genes in our cells don’t matter one iota if they’re not turned on, and there are many things in life that can turn off bad genes such as those that raise the risk of disease such as breast cancer. That’s why it seems to me that personal genome scans are just a couple of steps removed from palm reading. As it happens, last year New York started telling 31 private companies that they need licenses to take DNA samples from state residents, and in June California sent cease-and-desist letters to 13 of the companies with the same message.

Reading what genes a person has is so 20th century. Determining which genes are turned on is where the action is. A rat study I’ve mentioned before, for instance, showed in 2004 that the way a mother rat treats her pups determines whether genes related to neuroticism and fearfulness are on or off. Now comes a study that looks at something similar in people.

The variable wasn’t how mom treats you—though I’d bet a nickel that study is just around the corner—but the relaxation response. Back in the 1960s Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School coined this term to refer to the opposite of the stress response, which floods the body with stress hormones, raises blood pressure and elevates heart rate. In contrast, the relaxation response is a state of deep rest that decreases metabolism, relaxes muscles, slows heart rate and lowers blood pressure. Over the years, Benson and colleagues developed a sure-fire way to elicit it.

Now they’ve figured out how it works to, among other things, treat hypertension (high blood pressure), alleviate pain, even help with infertility and rheumatoid arthritis. As they report in PLoS One this evening, the relaxation response alters which genes associated with the body’s response to stress are on and which are off. As Benson said in a statement, “we’ve found how changing the activity of the mind can alter the way basic genetic instructions are implemented.”

It’s being billed as “the first comprehensive study of how the mind can affect gene expression.” By “mind,” they mean mental practices such as meditation and prayer, which are among the techniques used by the 19 long-term practitioners of the relaxation response who were studied, along with 19 volunteers who had never engaged in such practices. After the latter went through eight weeks of training, the scientists compared before-and-after patterns of gene expression, finding that mental training alters the expression of genes involved in inflammation, in the form of cell suicide called apoptosis (which can keep damaged cells from forming cancers), and in how the body handles damaging free radicals.

It really is time to stop thinking of our DNA as immutable. Even thinking can change it.

Getting Ahead of the Gotcha Game

Andrew Romano — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:35:08 GMT

Gotcha.

Chatting with reporters aboard his campaign plane yesterday afternoon, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama sought to burnish his foreign policy cred in advance of upcoming trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, Britain, France, Germany, Israel and Jordan. But with a single slip of the tongue, he may have seriously damaged his White House bid instead. The gaffe came in the midst of a conversation about how he'd apply a compassionate yet realpolitik approach to Darfur. "We can’t right every wrong and achieve every laudable goal," he said. "How can we bring pressure on the government of Somalia [for example]?" Realizing Obama's error, top strategist David Axelrod leaned in to correct him. "Sudan,"Axelrod said. "Sudan," Obama repeated.

From there, it was off to the races. Obama's flub first appeared in a pool report by the Washington Post's Juliet Eilperin. Then it surfaced up in Mike Allen's widely-read Politico Playbook news roundup. From there, the right-wing blogs reminded readers that Obama had earlier confused the roles of Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq--and been corrected by Sen. Jim Webb. With that came talk radio. Then Drudge, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, The Post, The Times, even the New Republic. And all of them arrived at the same conclusion: Maybe Obama Is Not Ready to Lead After All.

Oh, wait. Nevermind. My bad. It was, in fact, John McCain who confused Somalia and Sudan yesterday afternoon--on the eve of his trip to Columbia and Mexico--and John McCain who mistakenly (and repeatedly) suggested back in March that the Iranians, who are Shiite Muslims, are training operatives for Al Qaeda, which is Sunni. Earlier this year, it was McCain's Independent ally Joe Lieberman whispering in his ear; yesterday, it was Mark Salter, an aide. What's more, the only people who've bothered to link the two gaffes are liberal bloggers. Beyond Eilperin's initial report, the MSM hasn't even mentioned it.

That the scenario above is plausible for Obama but not McCain highlights one of the key dynamics of the 2008 presidential race--and points at a major danger for the Democratic nominee going forward.

There are two absurdities worth noting here. First, saying "Somalia" instead of "Sudan" isn't remotely newsworthy. These people are running for president. They publicly utter a tens of thousands of words every year. They should be allowed (occasionally) to get a syllable wrong--and they'd shouldn't be accused of ignorance every time they do. Of course, this isn't how our relentless media culture works. As I've written before, the Internet has blessed us with "a 1,440-minute news cycle." That’s dandy in theory--no hiding. But in practice, it totally skews the signal-to-noise ratio. While the demand for campaign news has exploded, the supply has stayed the same (did more really “happen” in 2007 than 2003, or 1983, or 1923?). To fill the growing void, reporters and analysts resort to what they know best—the tiny blips, slips and digits that constitute “the horserace”—and candidates, desperate for attention, provide the grist. That the only reason we're even talking about "Sudalia."

That leads to absurdity number two. As I've noted above, McCain got off scot-free here. In a vacuum, that's the proper response. The problem is that the media would've obsessed over a similar slip by Obama--radio, Drudge, MSNBC, the whole nine yards. That double standard is sort of hard to stomach. Liberals like to say that the press is biased in favor of McCain, but that's far too simplistic an analysis. Instead, the MSM is actually biased in favor of facile narratives. The McCain storyline says he's strong on foreign policy and experienced enough to be president. Apparently, that impression is powerful enough--check out the latest polls--to withstand a contradictory verbal gaffe (or two, as it were). But 54 percent of Americans believe, rightly or wrongly, that Obama lacks the experience to be an effective president, so a Sudalia of his own would be seen as substantiating those doubts. In that case, the gaffe-obsessed pundits would surely pounce, and Obama, in the words of the New York Times' John Harwood, "would likely pay a higher and more enduring price for a comparable flub"--i.e., a flub that's just as irrelevant as the one we're currently ignoring.

TUTTLE: Why Applachia Counts in 2008

Andrew Romano — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:30:17 GMT

Courtesy of the Colvin Family

Here's another excerpt from our annual "What You Need to Know" double issue: a dispatch by Steve Tuttle from his home region of Appalachia, which has quickly become this year's ground zero for political pandering:

"Hick." "Hillbilly." "Redneck." "Inbred." "Cracker." "Ridge Runner." I heard and self-effacingly used them all when I left the mountains of Appalachia to attend college in the great metropolis of Williamsburg, Va., in the '80s. I was mercilessly ribbed as a rube when I brought along my sky-blue JCPenney suit—with reversible vest—and my stack of Willie and Waylon albums, and entered a world that was as foreign to me as I must have seemed to my fancy William & Mary roommates from the private schools. Imagine my surprise at their surprise when, thinking nothing of it, I casually mentioned that I missed my mom's home-cooked squirrel.

Well, look who's laughing now. In this strangest of political seasons, Appalachia, the last forgotten place in America, suddenly matters. Never mind Florida and Michigan. In a close election come November, the difference between President McCain and President Obama could come down to me and my people: a bunch of ornery, racist, coal-minin', banjo-pickin', Scots-Irish hillbillies clinging to our guns and religion on the side of some Godforsaken, moonshine-soaked ridge in West Virginia. The Democrats comically pandered to all these stereotypes during this spring's primaries, when the 23 million people of Appalachia—that 1,000-mile mountainous stretch from southern New York to the middle of Alabama—briefly hijacked the presidential race. Scrounging for every last vote, the candidates went out of their way to look country. Hillary got all twangy. Barack tasted beer.

It was fun to watch them make fools of themselves. It was also a little depressing. Taking in the coverage, I was struck by how clueless people still are—and this goes double for presidential contenders—about this vast chunk of the country. If they think about it at all, it's not as a real place where actual people live actual lives. Instead, most Americans seem to see Appalachia through the twin stereotypes of tragedy (miners buried alive) and farce (Jed Clampett). It would do America good if we were forced to take a real look at a region without the distorted filter of prejudice and pop culture...

There's been quite a bit of progress in the 44 years since Lyndon Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" from a broken-down porch in Inez, Ky. In 1965, one third of Appalachians lived in poverty. The last U.S. Census showed that since then, the poverty rate has declined by more than half. Technology has helped make far-flung places less remote. I vividly remember watching television with my father. He'd shout out, "Boy, get up and see what's on the other channel." Our TV pulled in only two. Now satellites bloom on the hillsides, bringing hundreds of channels along with high-speed Internet.

In many of the remotest areas of Appalachia, though, life is as tough as ever. In the central part of the region, only 68 percent of kids graduate from high school. A generation ago, they'd find jobs in mines or factories or working tobacco farms. But those jobs are getting scarcer. To support their families, more people are commuting hundreds of miles to low-paying service-industry jobs in larger towns and cities. In April, when John McCain returned to the house where Johnson launched his poverty war, he found it padlocked with a NO TRESPASSING sign out front. A car was parked in the driveway, a broken window covered with a blanket. Despite LBJ's efforts, today about one third of the people in Martin County—where Inez is the county seat—still live below the poverty line.

In the coming months, McCain and Obama will, like the long line of candidates who came before them, descend on Appalachia bearing plenty of promises. The truth is, there's not much any president can do to change things in four or eight years. What they can do is simply take the place and its people seriously. Folks know when a politician is using them as stage props. John Kerry didn't sound believable last time around when he tried to pass himself off as a NASCAR fan. And no one in West Virginia thinks Obama actually kicks back with a bottle of Bud. If I could give advice to the candidates and their handlers, it would be this: don't pretend, don't condescend. (I made that rhyme so it would be easier to remember.) Andy Griffith, the patron saint of Southern culture whose mythical Mayberry sat on the edge of Appalachia, once said of his classic TV show: "We wanted them to laugh with us, not at us."

READ THE REST HERE.