I was glad during yesterday’s debate to see Bill Richardson mention the idea that getting serious about global warming “means being sensitive to mass transit, to air-conditioning, to the way we live.” But of course mass transit isn’t a great subject to talk about in Iowa. And thus Clyde Haberman’s lament that urban issues haven’t been discussed at all will be repeated every four or eight years until we adopt a nominating process that’s not so heavily dependent on Iowa and New Hampshire, whose combined population is a good deal smaller than New York City’s.
It does occur to me, though, that one nice thing about a Barack Obama presidency (or, though I shudder to say it, Rudy Giuliani) is that it’d be the first time since JFK that we had a president with a background in city politics.