Lexington's notebook

HAVING overdosed on campaign events in New Hampshire, I decided to skip South Carolina's GOP debate and tea-party fest in Myrtle Beach this weekend and headed instead for the Palmetto state's conservative up-country. As the home of Bob Jones University, Greenville seemed a good place to start, and turns out to be a very pleasant place to visit. On the way here I was told by local journalists and academics that the town's Main Street shows hints of cosmopolitanism, thanks to the arrival in recent  years of big foreign companies such as BMW, Michelin and Fujifilm. I was told that I might even hear foreign languages spoken on the street - hardly a rarity in much of America but still worth remarking on in the South Carolina up-country.

In the event, the first thing I stumbled upon at Liberty Bridge, which spans Greenville's Reedy River, was a rally of about 70 Ron Paul supporters. Convened by Facebook, they had no speaker but kept up a chant of "Ron Paul revolution/Legalise the constitution" and were rewarded every few minutes by the supportive honks of passing drivers. Aaron Bishop, an IT worker who had spent six years in the army, was holding a child in one arm and a placard in the other. He expressed total support for the whole spectrum of Paul positions: America could no longer afford its foreign military bases, the states needed more freedom from the federal government and the Fed had overseen a horrible decline in the value of the dollar.

David Woodard, a conservative political scientist (and sometimes Republican consultant) from Clemson University, who has co-authored a book on free speech with South Carolina's Jim DeMint, the Washington champion of the tea-party movement, told me somewhat ruefully that there was strong support for libertarian ideas among his students. In 2008 Paul had come first in a campus vote. But this is still a deeply conservative place. Woodard runs the Palmetto poll for the university and was not at all sure that Mitt Romney could win in South Carolina. His instinct is that despite being a Catholic, Rick Santorum is widey admired by South Carolina's evangelical Protestant voters for staying true in his personal life to his socially conservative principles. Yesterday's endorsement by a majority of evangelical leaders meeting in Texas will certainly help him.

This morning being Sunday, I took a walk through the back streets of Greenville, and within a matter of minutes had been beckoned into a church service. This was GraceChurch, described in a pamphlet in every pew as "a non-denominational elder-led church whose mission is to make mature followers of Jesus Christ by equipping them for a life of spiritual passion that impacts their home, the community, and the world for Jesus Christ". The large church was packed, mainly with young white couples, and when I entered the congregation was watching a troubled young man called Brandon explaining on a huge screen how after a long period of bad decisions he had at last saved himself by giving his life over to God. The pastor himself turned out to be not much older. Miked up and wearing blue jeans, with a guitar perched at his side, he explained how the broken, evanescent thing we call life on Earth was nothing like the true life everlasting of the Bible.

Later I thought I would ponder all this over a latte in the excellent, indeed funky coffee bar, Spill the Beans, I had discovered above Reedy River the previous day. No go. Spill the Beans was closed, having been commandeered by Origins Worship, a religious group that meets there every Sunday morning for prayer and teaching. God is hard to escape in the South Carolina up-country.

ACCORDING to Gallup, most Americans are not looking forward to the 2012 election campaign. Though 26% can't wait for it to begin, fully 70% can't wait for it to be over. For my part, I can't wait for it to begin. From the point of view of a journalist covering such a race for the first time, there is a lot to look forward to: a chance to travel the USA widely, the clash of larger-than-life personalities, and, in this cycle, a race that really is too close to call. It also helps to be a foreigner. Writing about a country that is not your own provides a degree of detachment, a luxury that American journalists covering their own politics are seldom able to enjoy.

I also suspect that covering the election will be a bit more uplifting than was writing about the past year in Washington. A year ago, just before taking a Christmas break, I posted this:

Like Rome before it was sacked by the Visigoths, Washington, DC, does not know quite what to expect when the 112th Congress convenes in January and the new Republican majority takes over the House. But as a temporary denizen of the nation's capital I feel a great foreboding. Didn't the Republicans campaign all year "against Washington"? In the eyes of the tea-partiers, isn't this place the moral equivalent of Tolkien's Dark Tower of Barad-dur? To judge by what they say, some incoming Republicans see themselves as descendants of Hercules, sent by outraged voters to clean the filth from the Augean stables. I'm seeking Christmas refuge in London, a capital city whose feral mobs mostly confine their wrath to aristocrats in their Rolls-Royces. But I'll return courageously with more mixed metaphors in January.

It has been kind of bad, hasn't it? Next month a colleague will be covering the Iowa caucuses. My own campaign will kick off in New Hampshire on new year's eve. Until then I am on holiday in London, taking a deep breath. Happy holidays to everyone, whether or not they're looking forward to the year ahead.

I KNOW I'm in danger of over-dosing. But if you can bear to read one more piece on Newt Gingrich this weekend, please, please read this.

LIKE most people, I'd been assuming that the Republican field for 2012 was now set, and that the race was henceforth a matter of subtraction, not addition. But such is the flexibility of the nominating system that this may not be true. Take a look at this. Rhodes Cook argues that the elongation of this year's primary timetable makes it theoretically possible for a new presidential candidate to enter late - in early February, say - and still collect enough delegates to win. Mr Cook is not making a prediction, only drawing attention to a possibilty. But he does point to scenarios in which it just might happen:

Should Mitt Romney stumble badly in the January events in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, another establishment Republican could enter the race in early February and still compete directly in states with at least 1,200 of the 2,282 or so GOP delegates. Many of them will be up for grabs after April 1 when statewide winner-take-all is possible. Similarly, should non-Romney alternatives led by Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry fall flat in the January contests, there would be time for the conservative wing of the party to find a new champion to carry its banner through the bulk of the primary season.

SINCE when did a statement of the bleeding obvious become a sacking offence? Howard Gutman, America's ambassador in Belgium is under fire for having said that some of the rising anti-Semitism in the Muslim world is the product of the conflict in Palestine. Newt Gingrich—shocked, shocked—has called for the ambassador's dismissal. But nobody who has travelled in the Muslim world with even half an ear open can seriously deny that the ambassador is completely right. Many Muslims hate Israel, and since Israel is the Jewish state they extend this hatred to Jews to at large.

It is important to note, as does a careful analysis in Salon, that Mr Gutman did not condone this new form of anti-Semitism. He made a distinction between two forms of anti-Semitism. First, the old form:

There is and has long been some amount of anti-Semitism, of hatred and violence against Jews, from a small sector of the population who hate others who may be different or perceived to be different, largely for the sake of hating. Those anti-Semites are people who hate not only Jews, but Muslims, gays, gypsies, and likely any who can be described as minorities or different. That hatred is of course pernicious and it must be combated. We can never take our eye off it or just dismiss it as fringe elements or the work of crazy people, because we have seen in the past how it can foment and grow.

Next, the new form:

It is the problem within Europe of tension, hatred and sometimes even violence between some members of Muslim communities or Arab immigrant groups and Jews. It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem.

The ambassador then adds:

It too is a serious problem. It too must be discussed and solutions explored. No Jewish student – and no Muslim student or student of any heritage or religion – should ever feel intimidated on a University campus for their heritage or religion leading to academic leaders quitting in protest. No high school or grammar school Jewish student – and no Muslim high school or grammar school student or student of any heritage or religion – should be beaten up over their heritage or religion. But this second problem is in my opinion different in many respects than the classic bigotry – hatred against those who are different and against minorities generally — the type of anti-Semitism that I discussed above. It is more complex and requiring much more thought and analysis. This second form of what is labeled “growing anti-Semitism” produces strange phenomena and results.

You see a problem with this? Nor do I. The ambassador is condoning neither version of ant-Semitism. What is always reprehensible, however, is for someone to use the wicked actions of a few members of some religious group as a reason to discriminate against the group as a whole. This, you may remember, was what Mr Gingrich did over the so-called 9/11 mosque affair, when, in the mother of all non-sequiturs, he argued that American Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque in Manhattan until Saudi Arabia allowed Christians and Jews to build churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia.

Tomorrow Mr Gingrich will spell out his views on the Middle East to a group of Jewish Republicans. As a Jew (like Ambassador Gutman), permit me to say: Oy Vay.

UPDATE: For an Israeli view, see this article on how Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's war hero and former prime minister, also thought that the Palestine conflict fed anti-Semitism.

IF THERE'S one thing Republican politicians agree about it is that they should repeal the Affordable Care Act, or "Obamacare". But as Ruy Teixeira of the Centre for American Progress notes today, that might not be the vote-winner they hope it will be. The latest numbers from the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll suggest that although more Americans (44%) oppose the law than favour it (37%), "by majorities ranging from 57% to 84%, they approve of almost all provisions included in the law". The sole exception is the individual mandate to purchase insurance, where just 35% are in favour.

Now it may well be that the Supreme Court will strike down the individual mandate on the ground that it is unconstitutional. Failing that, the Republicans say they will repeal it. But would they also repeal the rules that help poorer Americans to buy health insurance, require employers with more than 50 employees to offer health cover to their staff, and prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions? According to Kaiser, most Americans approve of these and other aspects of Obamacare. For reasons I've never completely understood, the Democrats made little effort before the mid-terms of November 2010 to explain or to defend the law on which they had expended so much time, energy and political capital. They just assumed it was a loser. They should consider trying harder in next year's campaign.

GEORGE WILL on top form. I especially liked this:

Gingrich, who would have made a marvelous Marxist, believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how. Conservatism, in contrast, is both cause and effect of modesty about understanding society’s complexities, controlling its trajectory and improving upon its spontaneous order. Conservatism inoculates against the hubristic volatility that Gingrich exemplifies and Genesis deplores: “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”

LOVE him or loathe him, Newt Gingrich has changed the terms of trade in the debate on illegal immigration. His assertion that those who have spent long periods of time in the United States, attend a church or have brought up children here could not simply be chucked out is a welcome softening of the general Republican stance. As to the numbers, the Pew Hispanic Centre has just published a useful study of how many undocumented residents would be eligible for the Gingrich-style mercy.

The bottom line is that nearly two-thirds of the 10.2m unauthorised adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least ten years and nearly half are parents of minor children. About 45% attend religious services on at least a weekly basis, though it beats me why this should be a criterion.

HAVING made no secret of my own doubts about Newt Gingrich, I doff my cap to the candidate for having picked up the important endorsement of the New Hampshire Union Leader. They believe he will provide "the innovative, forward-looking strategy and positive leadership" needed by an America "at a crucial crossroads":

Newt Gingrich is by no means the perfect candidate. But Republican primary voters too often make the mistake of preferring an unattainable ideal to the best candidate who is actually running. In this incredibly important election, that candidate is Newt Gingrich. He has the experience, the leadership qualities and the vision to lead this country in these trying times. He is worthy of your support on January 10.

The Union Leader's endorsement is much sought after, though it remains to be seen whether it will dent Mitt Romney's lead in the Granite State. What strikes me most is how thin the paper's argument is. It implies that the former Speaker rather than the president deserves all the credit for the budget successes of the Clinton years and says nothing at all about the regiment of skeletons camping in Mr Gingrich's closet. Mr Romney will no doubt soon be filling in the gaps.

HERE'S a piece of speculation. Rick Perry's horrible moment of forgetfulness (when he couldn't remember the third government department he meant to close down) in last night's GOP debate could change the history of the world.

To agree with this proposition you have only to believe the following.

(a) The Texas governor was the only serious obstacle to the nomination of Mitt Romney.

(b) Romney will beat Barack Obama next November but Obama would have beaten Perry.

(c) From 2013 and for perhaps eight more years Romney will be America's president.

(d) The character and beliefs of American presidents change the path of human history.

QED

I'VE written a briefing in this week's print edition arguing that their relentless drift to the right might just lose the Republicans the election.

And here's this week's print column on Herman Cain:

HERMAN CAIN likes to tell the story of his father, Luther, who in the 1950s in Atlanta, Georgia, scraped a living by holding down three jobs, one of which was being chauffeur for Robert Woodruff, the boss of Coca-Cola. Woodruff took such a shine to his driver that when Luther asked for stock in the company instead of occasional gifts of cash, the old man was happy to oblige. If Luther Cain, chauffeur, was half as charming as Herman, would-be president of the United States, the story makes perfect sense. Of all the front-runners for the Republican nomination, Mr Cain has been by far the easiest to like.

Mr Cain’s charm and intelligence had by the start of this week propelled the self-made pizza plutocrat to the front of the pack in the race for the Republican nomination. Not for nothing does his latest book, “This Is Herman Cain!”, the promotion of which has sometimes appeared to take precedence over his actual campaign, have an exclamation mark in its title. Almost everything about Mr Cain invites some sort of exclamation. He was a rocket scientist for the Navy! He survived stage-four cancer! Mr Cain is a Baptist preacher and motivational speaker: he can fire up an audience, stoke it to its feet and have it erupt with fist-pumping cheers. Voters who meet him in person are beguiled by his big smile and southern twinkle.

Could he really be the One?

Even before the harassment stories reared their head, his popularity was beginning to perplex professional political analysts. True, he was surging in the polls, but should they take his chances of becoming president seriously? Was he even serious about his own chances, or simply angling for book sales and a bigger chat show? Signs that he might not expect actually to win the nomination include a failure to campaign strongly in first-voting Iowa or to build an organisation or war-chest strong enough to carry him through later states if he did win there. The consensus among the cognoscenti was that he was a no-hoper, though Nate Silver, a statistical wiz, touched off a fierce debate by musing on the New York Times website as to whether Mr Cain had absolutely no chance of winning the nomination or, say, one chance in 50.

This week, alas, all such calculations were knocked to one side. Mr Cain’s spell between 1996 and 1999 as chief executive of the National Restaurant Association in Washington, DC, had appeared to be one of the duller way-stations in the candidate’s otherwise compelling life story. This week he returned to Washington to explain the snappy beauty of his “9-9-9” plan to revive the economy by scrapping the income tax and replacing it with a flat tax and sales tax. On his arrival, however, news broke that when he was the association’s boss at least two of its female employees complained that he sexually harassed them.

Up to this point, Mr Cain’s campaign had been gloriously unorthodox. An ad in which, against the usual bombastic soundtrack, his manager stares silently into the camera drawing on a cigarette struck some people as dotty, others as brilliant. “Let Herman be Herman” became his slogan, as the candidate came to see his relaxed personality as his most devastating weapon.

Can Herman continue to be Herman in the face of the harassment allegations? Perhaps, especially if the complaints against him are shown to have been untrue, unproven or exaggerated. But some of the originality has already started to drain out of the Cain narrative. For all the unorthodoxy of his campaign so far, the tale that unfolded this week has followed a script containing many of the plot twists that have become drearily familiar from previous political sex scandals in America.

First, Mr Cain, like many before him, ignored the golden rule, which is to tell all at once before the media find out anyway. The day after Politico broke the story, he denied (and continues to deny) ever having harassed anyone, claiming that after an investigation the charges against him were dismissed. He also said he was unaware of any financial settlement being paid. As the day wore on, however, he started to recall more details. Yes, there had been some sort of agreement under which one of the women might have been paid three months’ salary, but he could not remember whether he signed that agreement himself. The next day the New York Times reported that one of the women had in fact been paid a full year’s salary of $35,000.

Next Mr Cain complained, and some of his friends agreed, that the story was not a case of the newspapers doing their job but a racist “witch-hunt”. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Centre, which purports to unmask “liberal bias”, said that Mr Cain had predicted months ago that he might face a “high-tech lynching” like the accusations of sexual harassment that afflicted Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. “In the eyes of the liberal media”, said Mr Bozell, “Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas.” By November 2nd Mr Cain was accusing his bouffant Republican rival, Rick Perry, of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.

And so it invariably goes in America’s paranoid, super-charged politics. The lovely bubble of the Cain story has popped, making it harder for those bewitched by his silver tongue and folksy charm to continue to overlook his frequent gaffes and flaws, which include flip-flops on abortion and a comprehensive ignorance of the world beyond America’s shores. On television this week he gave a grave warning: China is trying to develop nuclear weapons! It has had them for half a century. For a while, Mr Cain and his story reminded Americans of something rather wonderful about their country. Now, perhaps, too much light has been let in on the magic.

IN THE short speech he has just made about the death of Muammar Qaddafi, Barack Obama was entitled to boast that he had achieved his aims without putting a single American boot on the ground. Mr Obama had been vilified by the Republicans, who accused him of "leading from behind", but who could never make up their own minds whether they wanted him to do more , less or nothing at all. Though it took time, the president's strategy worked out almost exactly as he predicted. It's worth looking back.