As an economist you ought to understand that there's a perfectly good utility-maximizing argument for why this is about more than "Bush bashing." If you want to move the center of the Republican party leftward, the best way to do it is to elect more Republicans from blue states, i.e., more Whitmans, Welds, and Giulianis. One aspect of this is convincing blue-staters that there's more to the GOP than Texas and Whitman's book can be seen as a way of doing this, however crassly. Keep in mind that in Mass., Bush took roughly 40% of the vote- hardly a pittance.

Note that the most serious talk about bringing the Democratic party back to power is focusing on ways to reinvigorate the party's presence in red states. Dean & Kerry proved they could sweep the coasts and cities and still lose.

Incidentally, I happen to agree in a sense with Whitman that the GOP is tilting a bit much, in the sense that the Bible-thumping is just going a little overboard, and I think this is a huge turn-off, at least in the New England. It's not that people here are hostile to religion- Boston is a long way from the Bay Area in this regard- it's just that this is not our style. Around here, particularly among Protestants, religion is something you talk about in church. Catholics are more open about it but people still don't like to see it used for partisan advantage, even if there is a logical argument to it, e.g., "if you're pro-life you should be pro-GOP." Bush's charismatic, evangelical style is seen as Southern and unsophisticated, though I repeat myself, and that is a big turn-off, even I think in the woods of Cow Hampshire, which I strongly feel proved decisive in Kerry's victory there. Of course, he talked about religion endlessly, but everybody knew he didn't really mean it, which paradoxically made it acceptable.

The most telling aspect of this is the phrase "antiregulatory lobbyists and extreme antigovernment ideologues" in the Bush Administration.

What seems to always be forgotten in arguments about 'blue'and 'red' approach to environmental protection is whether governmenet intervention and heavy handedness should be the first and only response. Red-staters and blue-staters both want a nice and healthy environment--the differences are in two dimensions 1)whther environmental protection trumps all other wants (e.g. is protecting the environment more important than feeding the hungry?)and 2) whether the governmental and regulatory elitists should be trusted with the responsibility ahead of the people.

Buh-bye, Christie.

Won't be seeing her again!