Republicanism and 2012

Journalist Stephen Budiansky's blog has an interesting graph; showing the relationship between the proportion of Republican votes and mean Obesity rates in red states. Obvious health-warning aside, it is interesting for anyone pondering the nature of America and its politics. However, anyone should bear in mind that correlation does not equal causation.

The original blog post can be found here.

The BBC's America Editor (and OE) Mark Mardell has an interesting post here about the possible Republican contenders for 2012's Presidential run. It'll be interesting to see how far Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin will continue to portray herself as a "Pit-bull with Lipstick" and whether the Republican base will continue to take the party to the right and ward off those RINOs. With the independent centrist voters who make up 1/3 of the electorate being conspicuously anti-Palin (they are the ones who will decide the result of the election) will the Republicans chose a moderate candidate rather than a divisive figure like Palin?

There is a chance that they will chose a comparatively moderate figure like, say, Mike Huckabee. This would rescue the Republican party from the cul-de-sac they are currently in and help to heal some of the unpleasant and partisan "Culture wars" in America at the moment.

Probably unlikely everything being equal. We'll see.