Campaign 2012: Follow the dark money

By now we’re all thoroughly sick of the most expensive campaign in U.S. history. Regardless of your ideological affiliation, I assume that I don’t have to convince you that if you know who a candidate’s key donors are, you pretty well know whose agenda will be a priority, and who will be shielded from unfavorable policies. Here’s a reminder of just how difficult it is to follow the money:

Mitt Romney, test pilots, and the politics of “It couldn’t happen to me”

By now there’s probably nothing new to say about Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment, so I won’t bother. Instead I want to look at the attitude behind it, which is one of the big dividing lines in American culture. And so naturally this leads me to The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe’s 1979 bestselling book about military test pilots and the Mercury space program.

No, really. There’s a connection here. Or an illustration at least.