He personifies the conservatism of the Midwest ... and those qualities are the qualities that harm him in the Democratic race for president.

Southerners focus on the social hot-button issues, like abortion and gay marriage. But Indiana, like Iowa or Wisconsin or Ohio, is more interested in the traditional Republican issues - balancing the budget, integrity in government. It's a much more humble kind of state.

It's very dissimilar to a Southern red state.

The neo-conservatives, who are closely linked to the neo-corporatists, are rather different. They claim to be conservatives, when everything they stand for is a rejection of conservatism. They claim to present an alternate social model, when they are little more than the courtiers of the corporatist movement. Their agitation is filled with the bitterness and cynicism typical of courtiers who scramble for crumbs at the banquet tables of real power, but are always denied a proper chair.

The human race has been set up. Someone, somewhere, is playing a practical joke on us. Apparently, women need to feel loved to have sex. Men need to have sex to feel loved. How do we ever get started?

If you're a liberal, anything you say is protected. If you're a conservative, anything you say is hateful.