When I said I share most of Jon Chait's politics, I didn't mean I share his crotchets, too. I have crotchets of my own, thank you very much. I thought that would be self-evident, but I keep seeing comments expressing dismay or wonder at how I differ from the guy. I'm not Chait, okay?
I don't plan to take a full inventory of the ways in which we differ. But to answer the question foremost in the minds of Chait loyalists: No, I do not have particularly strong feelings about Ohio, which Chait loathes. (Virginia, on the other hand...) I gave the state a lot of thought back in 2004 and came up with this. Unkind readers might point out that my hypothesis--if Ohio Democrats failed to win the state for Kerry they'd be stuck with Jerry Springer as their gubernatorial candidate--proved original and wrong in roughly the same measure. In the end Springer stayed out. The Democrats went in 2006 with Ted Strickland, who won. Then Strickland got beat in 2010 by John Kasich, a Republican. So sue me. You can't wound me deeply about this because, as I said, my convictions about Ohio are not deeply felt. I had a nice enough visit there, the highlight of which was getting a chance to see James Thurber's childhood home, where you can look at where the bed fell.