Tuesday's morning's enemy surveillance took us (as usual) to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page and upon seeing this article pitch (subs. req'd; alt free link) ...
JAMES WEBB
Secret GOP Weapon: The Scots-Irish Vote
Andrew Jackson's coalition can still turn elections.
... we thought: here we go, the (American) Republican -- (Ulster) Unionist axis, of which we have written frequently, is now out in the open. But to be fair, that's not what it is. Mr Webb is indeed arguing that the American descendents of Ulster Presbyterians are a key voting block in parts of New England and in what the nation once called the Indian Territories but from his own website one can see that this has been a lifelong writing theme of his, culminating in current book on the topic.
The article doesn't mention David Trimble or modern Unionism once, and the only slam is of Soviet-style psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer:
Mr. Krauthammer, who has never complained about this ethnic group when it has marched off to fight the wars he wishes upon us, wrote that Mr. [Howard] Dean "wants the white trash vote . . . that's clearly what he meant," and that he was pandering to "rebel-yelling racist rednecks."
Personally we think that Webb overstates the extent to which Dubya's Connecticut-Texas act appeals to this group but one look at the electoral college map shows why it matters.
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