Oh, no, another gray flannel suit

Sloan Wilson's 1955 novel "The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit," and the movie the following year starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones, were hugely popular. Each provided a jarring and penetrating look at conformity, especially in the upper echelons of corporate America.

Organizations of all kinds breed and demand conformity. Regrettably, it's a part of their DNA, and too frequently it's also a fatal disease.

And when we think about Mitt Romney, we also think about Bain Capital, the private equity investment firm that he co-founded a quarter-century ago, which has enabled him to now have a net worth of about a quarter of a billion dollars.

Romney is cut from the gray flannel cloth of corporate conformity. And like so many others cut from that cloth, he's perceived as bloodless, stodgy, aloof, unfriendly and unimaginative. Whether these characterizations are accurate or fair is not the point. And that's because in politics, perceptions are just as important as reality.

Therefore, it's undeniable that one of the problems the standoffish Romney faces in his battle with President Barack Obama is that most Americans like Obama, including many who don't think he's done a particularly good job as president.

Romney can't change who he is and how he's perceived. But he can help his campaign enormously, depending on whom he selects as his running mate. And the Romney campaign surely knows that it is the underdog in this election. Don't be fooled by the plethora of national polls that show the two candidates running neck and neck. They are misleading because the election is not a national election. It's a state-by-state, trench warfare election that in fact comes down to a dozen swing states, including North Carolina.

The winner on Nov. 6 will be the candidate who can carry most of those states. And the Romney campaign knows that Obama has the upper hand in a majority of those battleground states. The president has more pathways that lead to victory in those states than does Romney. Indeed, the eye of the needle that Romney must thread is very narrow.

Two of the most important battleground states are Florida and Ohio. Thus, it's not surprising that the names you hear mentioned the most for Romney's running mate are Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. Both of them are 21st century versions of men in gray flannel suits.

Marco Rubio is 41 and has served in the Senate since 2010. His parents were immigrants from Cuba. Rubio has been called the "crown prince" of the tea party. Now, there is no doubt that Romney must enlarge his support among the nation's Hispanics if he is to win. And Florida is certainly crucial in that regard. But putting Rubio on the ticket won't help enough with the non-Cuban Hispanic vote in battleground states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Virginia.

And it's way too late to be focused on wooing the tea party vote. To win, Romney must appeal to independents and suburban women. Furthermore, Romney should be able to carry Florida without Rubio. If he can't, you can turn off the TV and go to bed. It's over.

Now, Ohio is a different kettle of fish. Frankly, I can't see a way for Romney to defeat the president if he doesn't carry the Buckeye State. And Obama leads in Ohio. He's being helped by his bailout of the auto industry, which Romney opposed. That's why Sen. Portman is the putative front-runner in the veep stakes.

Portman, 57, was elected to the Senate in 2010 after having been a seven-term congressman from Cincinnati. He grew up in his father's business, the Portman Equipment Co. Portman is seasoned, competent, but as buttoned down as they come. His political philosophy is grounded in entrepreneurship. His ability to reach out to working class and independent voters is limited.

And he comes from the most reliably Republican part of Ohio — Cincinnati. To carry Ohio, Romney must be competitive in the middle- and working class suburbs north of Columbus, in places like Toledo, Akron, Cleveland and Youngstown.

Romney needs to break the mold with his choice for vice president. That man is Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. Christie is articulate, flamboyant, a risk taker, a straight talker and, most importantly, a man who is understood and trusted by working class Americans. In addition, putting Christie on the ticket will put solidly blue New Jersey "in play." It's unlikely Romney will carry the Garden State, but putting Christie on the ticket will force the Democrats to compete in Jersey. And that will cost them heavily because the television advertising they will have to buy will come out of New York City and Philadelphia. And those markets are exceedingly expensive.

Moreover, Christie wants the job. Win or lose in November, he'll be next in line for the GOP presidential nomination. The question is whether Romney can think beyond his buttoned-down collar and his gray flannel suit.

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Lincoln and Romney: Alpha and omega?

The Republican Party dates back to 1854, and its first president was Abraham Lincoln. More than a century and a half later, Mitt Romney seeks to become the 19th Republican president. None of us knows whether he will succeed. But if he does, there is a very real chance that he will be the last Republican president in the nation's history.

Surprised? Ridiculous, you say? Read on.

There are 538 electoral votes, and the candidate who wins at least 270 of them becomes president. And it is also the case that the Democrats and the Republicans can count on winning many states without breaking a sweat. In fact well over 30 states are totally dominated by one political party or the other. Thus, the real battle has been waged in the dozen or so "swing states."

Traditionally, the GOP has a lock on a large swath of reliably red states that begins at the Canadian border in the Intermountain West and the Northern Plains, runs due south to the Rio Grande River, turns east to the Atlantic Ocean and then north to the banks of the Potomac River.

Most of these solidly Republican states are rural, sparsely populated and homogeneously lily white. But one is not — Texas — and it's the anchor of the Republican electoral base. And the face of Texas is changing. In1980, Texas had 26 electoral votes. Today it has 38, second only to California.

So here's your challenge. Try to realistically amass the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the White House for a Republican without including Texas. Guess what? You can't do it. It's mission impossible. So what, you say. The GOP always carries Texas. After all, the Democrats haven't carried Texas since 1976.

But demography is destiny. And the demographics of America are rapidly changing. Last year, for the first time in our nation's history, more than half of the 4 million children born were minorities. Hispanics are now the second-largest population group in the United States after whites of European descent.

Furthermore, census data document that immigration is not the central factor that explains this transformation of America's population. The aging white population accounts for much of the change taking place. Last year, for example, only 1,025 white children were born for every 1,000 whites who died. And 2010 census data show that Hispanic women give birth to 2.4 babies on average, contrasted to 1.8 babies for white women. The birth rate for white women has declined by more than 10 percent — more than any other group.

The epicenter of this phenomenal growth of America's Hispanic population is right where you would expect — Texas. The census data show that Texas grew by 4.2 million residents, 20.6 percent, during the past decade. Whites accounted for an anemic 4.2 percent of this explosive growth. The black population grew by 22 percent. But Hispanics accounted for an astonishing 65 percent of the state's growth over the past decade.

Steve Murdock, a former Census Bureau director and now a professor at Rice University, said, "We're seeing the development of two population groups in Texas: aging Anglos and young minorities." During the past decade, Texas added nearly 1 million children under the age of 18, and 95 percent of them were Hispanic.

And the trends we're talking about here are not confined to the places you'd expect, such as Texas, Los Angeles and New York City. How about Schuyler, Neb.? Schuyler's a rural town of just over 6,000 that was settled by Irish and German immigrants. In 1990, its population was 4 percent Hispanic. In 2000, it was 41 percent Hispanic. Today it's 65 percent Hispanic. At the nearby Columbus Community Hospital, about 60 percent of the babies born over the past two years were Hispanic. And 90 percent of the students in grades K-3 in Schuyler's schools are Hispanic, as are 60 percent of its high school students.

A recent NBC-Wall Street Journal poll shows that President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney by an astonishing 61 percent to 27 percent among Hispanics. If Romney can't narrow that margin significantly, he won't win this November.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that to win, a Republican presidential candidate needs to carry about 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. Romney knows this, and there is little doubt that he will close part of this gap between now and Election Day.

But, given the continuing surge in the Hispanic population and the fact that the GOP has not successfully reached out to it, the long-term prognosis is both ominous and daunting for the GOP. Over the past 10 presidential elections, the Republican nominee has managed to win only 31.8 percent of the Hispanic vote. In addition, between 1992 and 2008, the Hispanic proportion of the electorate more than quadrupled.

During that time, the GOP has been schizophrenic toward Hispanics. The right-wingnuts want to round up and deport 12 million of them, while the GOP business establishment wants to continue to exploit them as a cheap source of labor in places like California's Central Valley and the apple orchards of Henderson County.

President Lincoln emancipated the slaves, and over time the Republican Party wrote their descendants off entirely. Doubling down on its blunder with Hispanics means "Vaya con Dios" for the once proud Republican Party.

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It's time to crack down on obesity

Over the past several decades, the nation has made great progress against alcohol abuse, drug abuse and smoking. Of course, much remains to be accomplished, but the aggregate change for the better has been dramatic.

At the same time, America is going in reverse when it comes to the stupendous problem of being overweight or obese. Understanding why is essential in order to determine what must be done if we are ever to get a handle on this epidemic and its costs.

The changing profile of America is breathtakingly grotesque. I dug out my 1956 high school senior class year book as a starting point. There were 183 in our class. Only one classmate was obese, and only three or four were overweight. There was no shortage of candy, sodas, fries, burgers, hot dogs or pizza back then. We ate a lot of that food, and at least one of us still does.

But back then we were physically active, most of our parents were not fat, and fat kids were objects of scorn and derision. The system worked. At the senior prom, for example, no girl wore what resembled a multicolored pup tent. And none of us guys had to worry on the dance floor that, if our date zigged when she should have zagged, we'd end up with a fractured pelvis.

How have we made such progress against drugs, alcohol and smoking? It's not a hard question to answer. If you get cross-wise of the law on drugs, you end up in a world of hurt. Three felony drug convictions in California get you a life sentence. A DUI conviction can cost you your license and send you to jail or prison. Advertising for alcohol and tobacco products is tightly regulated. Alcohol and tobacco products are very heavily taxed. In New York City, a carton of cigarettes costs about $200! And more than half of that is tax.

So let's be real clear: The principal way our nation has chosen to come to grips with these problems is by using the long and coercive arm of government.

In fact, a large majority of Americans support what governments at all levels have done to attack these problems. Most Americans believe smoking and drug abuse are killer health problems. They also believe alcohol abuse, especially when it's coupled with teens and/or driving, is a killer. And so we've forged a collective consensus — the use of government power to punish bad behavior.

At the same time, America is eating itself to death. At the recent Weight of the Nation Conference in Washington, researchers from Duke and elsewhere reported that in just one more generation at least 42 percent of Americans will be obese. That's 110 million Americans, including millions of children.

Obese people are prime candidates for diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure, certain cancers and joint replacement. These are self-inflicted diseases that now cost $147 billion annually, and those costs are rising rapidly.

Elementary school children by the millions view their teachers as role models. And far too many of those teachers, mostly women, are sending the wrong subliminal message to their students every day — it's OK to be fat.

Thus, it's no surprise that retired U.S. Army generals John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton have stated that "being overweight or obese has become the leading medical reason recruits are rejected for military service." They call obesity a national security threat.

What are we doing about this epidemic? Virtually nothing. The landscape is littered with bad policy and bad actors. For example, too many physicians will not engage their patients on this life-and-death problem. They are afraid of making them mad. The government dithers and then produces guidelines and calorie charts that are universally ignored.

The first lady plants a vegetable garden on the White House lawn that grows lettuce, collards, chard and anise hyssop. Wow! Network television celebrates obesity with the Emmy-winning sitcom "Mike and Molly" or the disgusting competition called "The Biggest Loser."

Guess what? None of this nonsense works.

Where's the long arm of the law that made the difference for smoking, alcohol and drugs? It cowers in fear — fear of political reprisal by a super-fat supermajority. There's the truth of the matter. Porcine politics has paralyzed effective action.

Now don't get me wrong. If 110 million Americans are obsessively self-destructive enough to engage in slow-motion suicide, I'm good with that. But I'm not good with their being able to shift the staggeringly high cost of their narcissistic behavior to the rest of society.

There are numerous options that are available to policymakers. For example, just a few days ago, the mayor of New York City proposed a ban in the city on super-sized sugary drinks. While such a ban, if enacted, could be easily circumvented by the fact that it would not apply to all commercial entities that sold those drinks, it is a start down the road of government action that has been successfully applied to tobacco, drugs and alcohol.

In addition, it might become necessary to go much further by limiting the availability of publicly subsidized health insurance to those who are obese. In such a case, those people could either choose to pay for their medical care out of pocket or simply lose enough weight so that they continue to qualify for subsidized health insurance.

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