Excelsior

The New York State Senate has re-affirmed that marriage is only ever the union of one man and one woman. Yet Obama easily carried New York, just as he did Maine, where the electorate recently made the same re-affirmation, even though it returns the two Republican Senators most likely to vote for the Healthcare Bill. "Yet"? "Even though"? So we are expected to believe. But Obama won California and Florida on the same day as those states endorsed traditional marriage. And traditional marriage is in fact Obama's own view.

He still has some way to go on foreign policy realism, although he is better than either his internal or his external rivals. But on the nature of marriage, on paleocon trade policies, on support for the Stupak Amendment and the Pregnant Women Support Act, and even on illegal immigration and the status of English (although he needs to stop dropping hints and start taking action), Obama is both right in principle, and in tune with public opinion. Clinton and Bush dynastic retainers alike need to face up to the fact of their defeat.