Most of us believe that the personality of the typical Minnesotan differs from that of the typical New Yorker. But has anyone demonstrated the truth of that belief with a study based upon information given in 600,000 questionnaires, controlled for “variables such as race, income and education levels”?

As Stephanie Simon reports in the WSJ (“The Geography of Personality”), researchers Rentfrow, Gosling, and Potter have, ranking the fifty states plus DC according to five personality traits and linking those traits to certain outcomes. (For example, “Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime.”)

My purpose here is not to discuss the study but to show that one of its findings can enormously improve John McCain’s chances of winning the election, specifically, the finding having to do with “Openness,” defined as how “open” citizens are to new ideas, with DC ranked as having the most “open” residents, New York second, Massachusetts fourth, and Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin 40, 43, and 47, respectively.

I argue that the McCain campaign should slam home the facts about Obama’s “new ideas,” especially in swing states, because one of the conclusions the majority of Americans must draw from the strikingly disparate rankings listed above is that liberals are dangerously and ideologically impetuous in laying “the old aside” to become the self-exalted “first by whom the new are tried.”

“Must draw” that conclusion? Yes, unless the majority are prepared to denounce themselves not simply as fuddy-duddies but as stupid, close-minded reactionaries.

So, let’s discuss Barack Obama’s “new ideas” - ideas that may sell swimmingly in the most liberal states but will never be bought by the majority of citizens in red and swing states, including Ohio (“Openness” ranking, 24), Pennsylvania (25), and Michigan (36).

The Economy

Even before the Wall Street mess, common sense Americans understood that with the stresses caused by high energy prices, high taxes, the housing bust, the mortgage debacle, and the effects wrought by foreign economies out to “get us,” politicians had better forget about the policy called “tax, spend, and borrow.”

Despite that reality, Barack Obama has loudly and consistently proposed the following “new idea” for the economy:

Raise taxes on a few to (1) give a tax break to everyone else (including a hand-out to those who pay no federal income tax) (2) pay for a government controlled health care “fix” (3) make Social Security solvent and (4) spend tens of billions on a plethora of new federal “investments.”

Problem is, Obama’s taxing doesn’t come within three trillion miles of his spending, a number we’ll find right on the mark when we listen to what the moderately liberal Tax Policy Center (a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution) has to say:

“Raising taxes on the rich [is] not the only way [Obama would] finance his ambitious plans. . .he’d also have to borrow $3 trillion.”

Let’s see. In the current environment, Obama proposes raising income taxes, increasing the death tax, raising taxes on dividends and capital gains (goodbye to jobs and financial markets), and borrowing three trillion dollars, yes, three trillion.

Now, liberals in DC, New York, and Massachusetts may praise that “new idea” as brilliantly innovative; but if I know anything about the people of swing states from Pennsylvania to Iowa, they’ll call it a crock.

Energy

By far, T. Boone Pickens has advanced the most practical, sensible plan for ending our dependence on foreign oil: “Do it all,” including producing wind generated electricity to free up natural gas for powering vehicles, thereby building a “bridge” to a clean, sustainable energy future.

But like the rest of congressional Democrats, Obama thinks natural gas grows on trees. (That “new idea” must surely be one of the reasons he opposed offshore drilling.)

Obama has now reversed himself on drilling? True, but in that reversal is another “new idea” - deny royalties to states for oil and gas pumped from new offshore wells.

There is the stunning contrast. While Pickens sings the praises of a fuel that can help place the nation on the road to energy independence, Obama supports an insidious, unconscionable, perverse political shenanigan that has no purpose other than to discourage drilling for it - and oil as well.

Moreover, Obama’s shenanigan insults citizens of swing states because it presumes they won’t perceive his anti-drilling position as part of the enormously dangerous, madly radical “new idea” that is his energy pipe dream.

But they will. And because of their “Conscientiousness,” they won’t forget to take their awareness of the pipe dream to the polls.

Radical Liberalism

There is, finally, the issue of extremism.

Smack in the midst of times when the nation faces challenges that range from profound economic problems at home to threats from abroad that include terrorism, nuclear proliferation, nuclear blackmail, Russian trouble-making, and economic warfare waged by China, India, Brazil, et al., the Democratic Party proposes the “new idea” that Americans elect the most wildly liberal president ever.

A conclusion that constitutes mere partisan propaganda? Not if we research Obama’s Senate voting record. But we must not stop there. We need to ask whether George McGovern or Walter Mondale ever associated with the kind of radicals with whom Barack Obama has long connected himself.

In that regard, many of us have been made aware of religious and social extremists Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger. . . benefactor, friend, “real estate advisor,” and felon Tony Resko. . . and corrupt political midwife and mentor a.k.a. “The Chicago Democratic Machine.”

However, another person with whom Obama associated himself hasn’t received the attention he deserves, even though he makes Reverend Wright look as harmless as a church mouse.

Specifically, candidate Barack Obama thought it an excellent “new idea” to accept money and help from “I don’t regret setting bombs/I feel we didn’t do enough” Bill Ayers, the unrepentant member of the Weather Underground, a sixties terror group whose “work” consisted of bombing public buildings, including a failed attempt to bomb a dance at an army base.

Not satisfied with that passive “innovation,” Obama improved upon it by serving closely and at the highest level with the former terrorist in an organization dedicated not to improving mastery of the “three R’s” in Chicago schools but to imbuing students and teachers with the R of leftist radicalism.

Think of it. Never before in American history has the resumé of a presidential candidate included this:

“Worked closely with an unrepentant former hateful, vulgar-mouthed terrorist”

“Work consisted of radicalizing students who are desperately in need of positive mentoring and academically sound teaching”

That astounding doublet of “new ideas” alone will cause significant numbers of voters in swing states to find Barack Obama unfit for the presidency just as it will have the same effect in other states, including North Dakota, the state whose students lead the nation in SAT scores and the state, by the way, ranked 51st for “Openness.”

How appropriate to end with mention of the Peace Garden State; for when we consider what it means to be open to the “new ideas” Obama implemented for Chicago’s schools as well as the “new ideas” he proposes for the nation’s economy and energy needs, we can fully understand why the honest, faithful, hard-working, fair-minded, wisely cautious, common sense people of North Dakota ought to revel in their place on the “Openness” list.

Copyright by A.J. DiCintio