I understand why.  In politics, things are most interesting when we're talking about ideas, policies, the underlying currents of a society that are translated into visible form by a political campaign.

So why do I circle back so often to the tactical, strategic, "politics-as-strategy-game" stuff?  Because it matters.

If American politics show us anything, it's that ideas aren't enough.  Often, the most nuanced and sophisticated thinkers are marginalized because they can't work within the vast, byzantine, weird system that is our democracy.

It can also be fascinating stuff.  Take, for example, Mitt Romney, the on-again-off-again frontrunner in the GOP primary.

Here's a guy who, on first blush, seems to have it all.  He looks good on TV, and he has a photogenic family.  He's scandal-free.  He has a nearly limitless supply of campaign cash, and a brilliant national political team.

He also has a platform that is a good, general fit for the modern Republican Party.   It's very conservative, but not whacky conservative.

But so far, the missing link has been a horse-racey element:  Romney himself is a clunky campaigner.  He hasn't been able to find the rhythm and comfort-zone that builds into the energy that a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton projects.

And generally speaking you need that kind of intangible spark to topple a sitting president.

Consider Romney's performance at the CPAC conference this week.  You could feel him reaching for that elevating moment, that I'm-one-of-you-in-my-heart connection.

And then he dropped in one awkward tone-deaf word — "severely" — that reminded everyone in the room that whatever his politics, Mitt Romney just isn't a natural.

“I was a severely conservative Republican governor,” he said.

It sounds innocent enough, but conservatives don't like to think of themselves as "severe."  In their playbook, they're the normal ones, the Americans who cleave to tradition and core values.

All politicians make gaffes.  But great campaigners don't commit so many of them that they keep tripping up their own energy, defusing the focus of their message.

This may be one reason Rick Santorum is surging.  Whatever his politics, whatever the state of his fundraising and his organization, he looks comfortable up there.  He looks like he's having fun.  He looks like he means it.

He might not have the pedigree.  But right now, Santorum simply looks like a stronger, faster horse than Romney.  And this is a race that once again looks very, very competitive.

If I were nine years old, could pick like that, and I had that outrageously cool, nerdy toy, I'd pretty much know that life was good.

Zoom in and out from infinity to quarks

NCPR's June Peoples shared this around on Facebook and I know a lot of In Boxers will find it incredibly, incredibly fantastic (no, that's not too many incrediblies…)

Click through on the link here.

Yesterday I was having lunch at Blue Moon Cafe in Saranac Lake and Aggie Pelltieri dropped by to talk up this weekend's Winter Carnival parade, even offering a sneak peak of  one distinctly awesome float.

I'm forbidden to reveal details, but people are pulling out all the stops.

In case you missed it, National Geographic rated Saranac Lake's carnival as the second best in the world back in December.   Not bad bragging rights.

The town is buzzing and so is our house, with wife Susan joining a new "Canoodler" drill team that will march and cavort in the parade with paddles while pretending to be from France.  (If you come, that'll make more sense.)

My son Nicholas will march with the high school band and I'll be up on the judge's platform MCing the parade outside Harrietstown hall.

As NCPR's resident sci-fi-fantasy nerd, I've been thrilled with the theme's of Winter Carnival the last two years, Medieval Times and now Space Alien Invasion.  What could be better?

The costumes have been awesome.

So if you're fed up with the lack of winter, come get your dose of Winter Carnival in Saranac Lake this weekend.  Here's the schedule of events.

It looks like a good cold weekend…and even a chance for snow!

Critics, including Governor Andrew Cuomo, described the political map released last month as biased in favor of protecting incumbents.

A court challenge is all but certain and the LATFOR commission hasn't even released congressional boundaries yet.

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting today on what all that uncertainty means for candidates hoping to jump into races.

“I can’t imagine anybody who’s considering a serious run for any legislative seat in the state of New York not weighing the issue of redistricting,” said Brian S. McGrath, a Lewis County Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for the Assembly in 2010 and won’t run again this year.

“Frankly, it’s probably the No. 1 consideration for most people contemplating runs at the moment. It was without question at the top of the list of things I was discussing with people in Albany when weighing my political future.”

Because potential challengers don't know what districts will look like (or, in some cases, whether old districts will even still exist) it's difficult to fundraise, build political networks, or secure petitions to get on the ballot.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, with the primary election for House races set for just five months away.

It's apparently (not surprisingly) a complicated deal. Here are some of the highlights:

They say those members will get some layoff protections. Pay will be frozen for the years 2011 through 2013. There are retroactive increases of 3% for 2009, when the previous contract expired, and 4% for 2010. The deal calls for 2% raises in 2014 and 2015.

The deal also includes nine furlough days over this year and next, with pay for four days later repaid. That's projected to save $4.3 million.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and union president Donn Rowe said today it's a fair deal that reflects hard times. It's still subject to a vote by 26,000 union members. Oh, and by the way, those covered by this deal represent just 1600 of those 26,000.

Here's a link to the "Capitol Confidential" post, which provides more detail.

Indeed, some of his signature acc0mplishments during his first four years are borrowed from the Republican playbook, a fact that confuses and disenchants many in his own movement's base.

Here are the ten accomplishments that lie at the heart of Mr. Obama's right of center street cred.

1.  Down-sizing government.

I know, I know.  You've heard over and over that Mr. Obama ballooned the deficit and spent trillions inflating the Federal bureaucracy.

In fact, a huge portion of the various "stimulus" programs launched over the last three years were aimed at propping up private sector businesses (through big public works projects).  Bales of cash also went to pay for enormous tax cuts or to bankroll unemployment payments for individuals.

That money didn't go to expand the size of government.

On the contrary, the big untold story during Mr. Obama's first term is that overall government employment in the US dropped dramatically — another 270,000 cuts in the last year alone. And he's not done.

Mr. Obama has proposed massive cuts in the number of soldiers on the government payroll going forward, and his administration has also signaled that it will go along with huge declines in US Postal Service enrollment.

This "success" at fostering a leaner government would be a major re-election meme for a Republican.   But for a Democrat, it's a mixed bag at best.  Many public sector unions are deeply unhappy with the Administration's inability to help fund more government jobs at the Federal state and local level.

2.  Killing terrorists.

It's not just that we got Osama bin Laden on this President's watch.  Team Obama has pursued an incredibly aggressive campaign of aerial drone, special ops and ground force operations against a wide variety of terror cells, from Africa to the Middle East.

Last month, Navy Seals rescued hostages from a terror camp in Somalia, scoring another big symbolic victory.

But behind the scenes, US forces have been pounding targets, perhaps even participating in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

This is another of those successes that would be a major talking point for a Republican candidate, but Mr. Obama's base is nervous about drone attacks, and the continued operation of the prison camp at Guantanamo.

3.  Deporting illegal aliens.

The conservative media has dined out for years on the notion that Mr. Obama coddles illegal aliens.  But the numbers tell a different story.  This administration has deported more than 400,000 undocumented workers a year, every year, since 2009.

That's more than George W. Bush or any previous president managed to accomplish.  Indeed, this White House has presided over such a massive round-up of illegals that the deportation system is glutted to overcapacity.

Again, this is a "talking point" that Mr. Obama can only take up very delicately.  He hopes to win landslide levels of Hispanic support in his 2012 bid.

4.  Energy production

Again, I get it.  There have been some really high profile "liberal" moments for Mr. Obama.  He talks about renewable energy.  He put the Keystone XL oil pipeline project on hold.

But remember, this is a president who — in the weeks before the Deepwater Horizon disaster — greenlighted more offshore oil drilling.

Domestic oil production is at its highest level now that we've seen in 8 years and the country has emerged as a major natural gas producer — a fact Mr. Obama trumpeted in his state of the union address.

And for the first time since 1978 (more than thirty years!) the Federal government is set to approve two new nuclear reactors on Mr. Obama's watch, both located in Georgia.

Again, the political fall-out of these positions is complex.  Conservatives say the President hasn't gone nearly far enough, while some of Mr. Obama's supporters in the environmental community are furious.

5.  Being an old fashioned American capitalist.

Mr. Obama used a lot of government-and-taxpayer money during the depths of the recession to prop up major American businesses, from Wall Street banks to Detroit automakers.  His critics called that socialism.

But three years later, the worst you can say about the bail-outs is that they look sort of like pro-big business corporate welfare.  (As opposed to, say, a deliberate campaign of nationalization.)

And there is a growing argument to be made that timely interventions by Mr. Obama (and by his predecessor George W. Bush) saved major American companies that have once again emerged as vibrant, private-sector job-creators.

What's undeniable is that this administration's economic team comes from the business end of the political spectrum, not the lefty-labor side.

Conservatives give him zero credit for this, and neither do Occupiers, who are incensed that a Democratic president is so closely aligned with Wall Street.

This is only a partial list, obviously.  Other big chunks of Mr. Obama's early policy platform — cap-and-trade carbon programs, insurance mandates for healthcare coverage — came straight from the Republican Party's playbook.

The question as the campaign heats up is how these positions play in voters' minds.

Will Mr. Obama's non-ideological approach play well with independents?  Will it be harder for a Republican moderate like Mitt Romney to carve out meaningful distinctions on the campaign trail?

And what about rank-and-file Democrats?  Will they come out in force to back a President whose first term included big agenda items that would make a Republican administration proud?

By and large, the story reported by Lisa Foderaro is fairly low-key, taking stock of the conflicts but also acknowledging that the decision was perhaps a bit less controversial that might have been expected.  Here's a sample:

In the early decades of the Adirondack Park Agency, which was formed in 1971, tensions around private-property rights occasionally turned violent.

That pitch of anger has subsided. Now even some environmental groups talk about the importance of development. One such group, the Adirondack Council, endorsed the resort plan in the end.

Check out the full article here.

More sleds are getting out on trails in some parts of the North Country and Vermont, but snow cover remains remarkably patchy to nonexistent in many areas.  This from the Glens Falls Post Star.

Patti Stetson, owner of the Black Bear Restaurant in Pottersville, called the drop in business this winter "brutal."

…Stetson, whose Route 9 eatery is on the North Warren Snowmobile Club trail system, said business is off 50 percent or so, which has forced her to cut back hours for staff members.

And with fewer customers, tips aren't great for those who are working.

"We're right down to a skeleton crew, and even the ones who are working are hurting," Stetson said.

Similar pain is being felt in Vermont, according to the Burlington Free Press.

“It’s been a challenging winter,” said Alexis Nelson, trails administrator for the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers. “Winter is having an identity crisis,” she said.

As of this week, VAST is exactly halfway through its 16-week season, and only a very limited number of snowmobile trails are open.

There is limited snowmobiling in some high-elevation places, such as near Jay and Eden. “But you can’t do a 150-mile loop, and that’s what people like to do,” Nelson said.

NYSSA President Gary Broderick says the mild winter is having a major negative impact, first for snowmobiler's fun, and second for the businesses that support the sport.

He said, "it's been a terrible year. It's been very hard on the snowmobile clubs that build the trails throughout New York and it's very hard on the business that support snowmobiling and benefit from snowmobiling across the state."

“The climate is changing, it’s measurable right now and it will accelerate and change from the emissions we’ve already put out and will continue to put out,” [Gord Miller, the province’s environmental commissioner] said.

“We’re going to have more severe weather and we’re going to have more severe problems and we have to plan for that and look at our infrastructure.”

This includes implementing changes to roads by adding culverts to accommodate more water from intense storms, he said.

In an interview this morning with NCPR, activist and author Bill McKibben argues that groups like his 350.0rg are once again gaining some traction on climate issues, including President Barack Obama's recent decision to cancel a controversial Canadian oil pipeline project.

Also, this week, state officials in New York state are hosting a national conference on the impacts of climate change on plant and animal species.

The National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy is geared toward providing a unified approach—reflecting shared principles and science-based practices—to reduce negative impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife, plants and the natural systems they depend.

Federal, state and tribal partners, with input from many diverse groups across the nation, are collaborating to develop a common strategy to respond to the challenges a changing climate poses for our nation’s species, ecosystems and natural resources.

So what do you think?  Climate has been on the back burner as the US and other countries grappled with the recession.

In the midst of this warm winter and in the wake of epic floods, is it time to revisit the global warming debate?

The plan is really calling for an expansion of many areas where we would like to have a harvest of the species," said state wildlife biologist Paul Jensen of the Warrensburg DEC office.

"This will give us a better idea of bobcat distribution and enable us to improve our hunting and trapping seasons.

"We've been harvesting bobcats for many years," he added. "On all accounts, bobcats are relatively stable."

As Phil Brown reported recently in his Adirondack Explorer blog, the primary change in the North Country would be an expansion of the trapping season.

[T]he trapping season in the Adirondacks and the rest of the North Country would be extended. The season now runs from October 25 to December 10. Under the plan, it would be extended to February 15. The hunting season will not change.

The trapping season in the Adirondacks had been shorter than elsewhere to protect fishers. Since the fisher population has rebounded, the department feels that rationale no longer obtains.

The plan also calls for extending both the hunting and trapping seasons in central Tug Hill to February 15.

What do you think?  A good sport hunting opportunity?  Or are you concerned about the expanded taking of bobcats?  Comments welcome.

According to the report, NYSCOPBA donated nearly $274,000 to politicians, with most of the money going to the Democratic majority in the Assembly and Republicans who are in the majority in the state Senate.

The prison guard union has also been the largest single donor to state Senator Betty Little from Queensbury, whose district includes roughly a dozen state and Federal prisons.

In Vermont, Roman Catholic leaders say the government should move to block or disallow civil lawsuits sparked by the priest-sex abuse scandal, according to the Burlington Free Press.

“The State cannot infringe on a protected freedom by imposing damages and penalties that the church cannot pay,” the diocese said in a motion asking Judge William Sessions III to throw out a lawsuit filed in 2010 by a man alleging that as an altar boy he was molested in Rutland by the Rev. Edward Paquette in 1974.

“If the protections of the First Amendment are to mean anything, the government should not be allowed to shut the doors of a church and put it up for sale,” church lawyers Kaveh Shahi and Tom McCormick wrote.

Meanwhile, the Diocese of Ogdensburg in northern New York is blasting an Obama administration rule that would force the church to offer health insurance that includes services that the church rejects, including contraception, voluntary sterilization, and abortion.  This from the Adirondack Daily Enterprise:

"The federal government, which claims to be 'of, by, and for the people,' has just dealt a heavy blow to almost a quarter of those

People – the Catholic population – and to the millions more who are served by the Catholic faithful," [Bishop Terry] LaValley said.

So what do you think?  Do you see a Roman Catholic church under siege in an increasingly secular world?  Comments welcome below.

2012 Doomsday

So here's how 2012 could go deeply, terribly wrong for the GOP:

A HEALTHY ECONOMY

By most mainstream measures, the economy has been trending upward for the last two years.  Unemployment just dropped again and if Mr. Obama catches a break, we could be down below 8% by election day.

There are signs the hopeful trend could be accelerating.

If this continues, the doom-and-gloom scenario offered by Republicans, including Mitt Romney, will sound, well, doom-and-gloomy.  Most politics-watchers will tell you that American voters prefer optimism to sky-is-falling rhetoric.

But it could be very difficult for Mr. Romney to tweak or nuance his message, because the Republican base is wedded to the idea that this administration is an anti-capitalist juggernaut, eager to doom free enterprise.

They don't want better ideas for running the country.  They want an indictment of a rogue regime.

DITCHING ROMNEY

If the right-wingers who make up the GOP's core think their candidate is waffling (again) on his red meat message, we could see real disaffection come November.  Worst case scenario?  A full scale-revolt.

Remember, the right loves to thrash Democrats.  But they love to punish moderate Republicans even more.

If the Republican candidate is Mr. Romney, this eventuality is made more plausible by the fact that he is a Mormon.  His faith is viewed with deep distrust, bordering on real animus, by many within the evangelical movement.

(A late January poll in Florida found that four out of ten likely Republican voters either think Mormons aren't Christians or they "aren't sure.")

A collapse in confidence at the top of the ticket could bring a cascade of damage in congressional races around the country, not least because the GOP brand is already in bad shape.

A COLLAPSING BRAND

Consider this:  A poll issued last week by NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that Barack Obama has a net positive public image of +11 — meaning he's liked more than he's disliked by a significant margin.

The closest Republican on the list?  That was Rick Santorum, who scored an anemic -1.  Mitt Romney was at -5 and the Republican Party as a whole was -13, two points below the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

(The Tea Party movement, by the way, scored a net negative rating of -15.)

That means the GOP is already on very thin ice with key swing voting groups, including independents and Hispanics.

Their dissatisfaction could be sharpened disastrously by the fact that the party has entered 2012 with a gaggle of bizarre and potentially discrediting hangers-on.

These days, Sarah Palin seems downright stateswoman-like.  The Hermain Cain-Donald Trump-Michelle Bachman weirdness of the Republican primary took things to a whole new level.

And it's not just on the fringes.  Just last week, Team Romney apparently thought it was a good idea to have their guy endorsed publicly by Mr. Trump.

A public embrace from a man who ranks near the Kardashians on America's pop-culture scale isn't exactly a surefire way to look reassuringly presidential.

And because conservative power is rapidly fragmenting into a constellation of media empires, Super-PACs, and powerful personalities (the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, Rupert Murdoch, Trump etc.) it will be difficult to put that mess back in a box again.

A RESURGENT BARACK OBAMA

But in an everything-goes-wrong election, it won't just be Republicans bungling.  It will also mean that Mr. Obama will find his voice again as a politician.

And there are signs that this could be happening.  After two years of professorial rhetoric, he is once again tossing off zingers like "Don't muck it up."

Meanwhile, conservative efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, strip unions of collective bargaining rights, and roll back gay rights could mobilize, energize, and unify Mr. Obama's base.

LONG-TERM DAMAGE?

S0 let's sum up.

In a worst-case scenario year, Republicans could emerge into the national spotlight with a weak presidential candidate that no one really likes very much.

Their standard-bearer could be surrounded at the Republican National Convention by a zany cast of supporting characters with a menu of gloomy, out-there ideas.  (Gold standard, anyone?  A new moonbase, maybe?  How about mass deportation of undocumented workers?)

That b-list team could find itself facing a strong, energized incumbent president, who by contrast looks steady, competent, optimistic and grounded in the problems of average Americans.

If everything goes wrong for the GOP, the outcome will be four more years of Barack Obama, which could well mean that he gets one more pick to the Supreme Court.

But it could also mean a Republican majority in the House whittled down sharply, as well as continued Democratic majorities in the Senate.

Perhaps most importantly, we could see the long-term alienation of crucial voter blocks (Hispanics, independent women, young people) that will shape American politics for generations to come.

(Next weekend in doomsday scenarios:  What if the Occupy movement occupies the Democratic convention?)

This leaves Rutland in the position of many small, once-bustling industrial towns in America: casting around for what’s next. Finding that thing — green energy? Local foods? New farms? — and agreeing on it can be tough for a community divided between can-do youngsters and a population segment that’s reticent in the face of change.

In Burlington, Project BTV is trying to involve community members in downtown planning, but with mixed results.

Rejuvenating a town or city is tough work. All across Vermont and the North Country, people are thinking about how to make their communities prosperous, sustainable, nice place to live. I'm wondering–have you seen revitalization efforts at work in your towns? Do you agree with them, and have they worked? What makes a community vibrant?

A Vermont cow, with pig spots

It's a prank to rival any other–several years ago, an inmate working at the Vermont state prison print shop in St. Albans modified a decal used on Vermont state police cars. The decal features a pastoral scene with a dairy cow. The cow is brown with yellow spots. Most of the spots are amorphous blobs…except for one in the top lefthand corner, which is shaped like a pig.

The pig image, writes the Burlington Free Press, harks back to "the infamous ’60s-era epithet by protesters for police officers."

Nobody noticed the pig-shaped spot for awhile, and state police estimate the decal is sported by some 30 cruisers.

“This is not as offensive as it would have been years ago. We can see the humor,” Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn told the Free Press.

Skaters on Ottawa's Rideau Canal during Winterlude. Photo: Judy Andrus Toporcer, Pierrepont NY. NCPR Photo of the Day archive, Winter 2010.

Two notable events missing from our survey of  wintry revelry Friday.

The entire length of the Rideau Skateway opened, ushering in the opening of Ottawa's Winterlude. The annual carnival runs through Feb. 20.  Ice carving underway.

Our Ottawa area correspondent, Lucy Martin, says the conditions vary, as we can imagine, from poor to very good. Find ice conditions here or at 613-239-5234. Lucy says there's very little "real winter" in Ottawa either this time around.

Saranac Lake High School students in the Empire State Winter Games torch run pass by the town hall in downtown Saranac Lake. Photo: Mark Kurtz.

If you've never been to Ottawa for Winterlude, or to just skate on the Canal, I highly recommend a visit. It's easy to rent skates, and it's a shame to go a whole winter without  that signature canal-side piece of fried dough, the beavertail.

And from the folks in Lake Placid, the Empire State Winter Games opened Thursday night with the parade of athletes, and a skating show at the Olympic Arena. Organizers say 1,000 athletes will be competing this weekend.

Wing, who was 21 at the time, was reported missing in November 2010. In a press release, police say they’re currently searching Trimm’s property—and that earlier today, they found human remains they believe to be Wing’s.

Trimm was arraigned and is being held at St. Lawrence County jail without bail.

The newspaper quotes Martha Stahl, vice president of external affairs at NC Planned Parenthood, as saying the cut would help the state reduce Medicaid costs.  Pregnant or parenting teenagers had to be eligible to receive Medicaid to participate in the program.

“For us, these programs were pretty self-supporting, and it was very successful, but that was the only funding to support it,” Stahl tells the Watertown Times.  “It was a Medicaid program, and we could bill Medicaid for that.”

There is no longer a specific Planned Parenthood program for pregnant and parenting teenagers in the North Country, but the newspaper reports that some participants of the Teenage Services Act program have qualified to transfer to the agency’s Community Health Worker Program.

What do you think – is it a good idea to cut money for teen pregnancy and parenting programs, to save money on Medicaid?

But the Plattsburgh Press Republican reported this morning that there are hairline cracks in the concrete abutments of the graceful new span.

Pedestrians took over both lanes for grand opening of the Lake Champlian Bridge in November. Photo by Mark Kurtz.

The paper says you can see some of the cracks in the pillars with the naked eye.

Not to worry, the NYSDOT says the cracks are nothing to worry about, and don’t need fixing. They’re considered “routine” in new concrete.

There is superficial hairline concrete cracking, which routinely occurs on all newly poured concrete bridges. Such hairline cracks are normal and do not affect the safety or structural integrity of the bridge.

According to the Press Republican, traffic across the news bridge is about 3400 vehicles  a day. The loss of the 1929 span had forced all those commuters, tourists, cyclists and neighbors to take the very long way around the long, skinny lake.

It was no wonder the new bridge was greeted with joy on both sides of the Lake when it opened in November, barely over two years after the old bridge was abruptly declared unsafe at any speed, or weight, and closed for good.