Lexington: A grain of sand for your thoughts

摘要

William Blake talked of being able to see "a world in a grain of sand". Students of American politics don't have as convenient a microcosm to help them understand a country of nearly 300m people. But they do have Ohio. Ohio has always had two things going for it, psephology-wise. It is a classic bellwether state-"wrong" in only two presidential elections in the past 104 years. And this slice of the midwest contains a bit of everything American-part north-eastern and part southern, part urban and part rural, part hardscrabble poverty and part booming suburb. But for political wonks, it now has an irresistible addition: a state Republican Party that mirrors first the success then the problems of the national one.