Re: St. Ives

Underwear aside, Ana, (and Romney did not answer that question when USA Today asked it recently) the question of how Romney's faith will affect people's willingness to vote for him is going to be one of the great guessing games in the Republican primary race. That same USA Today story had a poll in which 24% of those surveyed said they wouldn't vote for a Mormon. By comparison, only 11% felt that way about a woman candidate and 5% about a black. That's the bad news for Romney. The good news is that descriptions of his top two opponents in the Republican primary got even greater resistance: 42% wouldn't vote for a 72-year-old candidate and 30% wouldn't vote for one who was married three times. Romney argues--and he's right I think--that these kinds of descriptions don't mean much in polls unless there are real people attached to them. He says, for instance, that most Republicans in 1980 probably would have told a pollster they wouldn't vote for a divorced actor.

I'm heading back to Swampland from Silicon Valley today. Getting here had me stuck in O'Hare for so long that I probably could have registered to vote in Illinois. Wishing for a break from the weather gods...

UPDATE: My plane is boarding, but you've gotta read this in the Boston Globe.