"With values like these . . ."

Harold Meyerson in today's Washington Post:

This is not a president who has it in him to spend money on improving the education of poor children or to side with consumers over such mega-donors as the drug industry. In a similar vein, the administration's on-again, off-again attempt to increase its support among Latino voters by backing a pseudo-immigration reform that offered residency but not citizenship to the immigrant workers it would cover hasn't yielded any increase in its Latino backing, either.

So the GOP outreach strategy for November focuses on conservative churchgoers far more than anyone else. The Republican National Convention will showcase the party's otherwise marginalized moderates -- Arnold Schwarzenegger, John McCain -- for the great moderate audience. But I doubt the convention planners really believe that this late in the game they can fool anybody. The Republicans' campaign is all about scapegoating John Kerry for the ills of modernity. It's about exploiting homophobia, provincialism and cultural insecurity. Or, as they put it, values.