When John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s book Game Change was first released, it was derided for its reliance on tawdry details and unnamed sources. Still, Heilamann and Halperin proved they knew how to spin a gripping yarn.
Those skills are again on display in a recent piece Heilamann wrote for New York, a blistering summary of the dynamics at play in the Republican race thus far:
The transfiguration of the GOP isn’t only about ideology, however. It is also about demography and temperament, as the party has grown whiter, less well schooled, more blue-collar, and more hair-curlingly populist. The result has been a party divided along the lines of culture and class: Establishment versus grassroots, secular versus religious, upscale versus downscale, highfalutin versus hoi polloi. And with those divisions have arisen the competing electoral coalitions—shirts versus skins, regulars versus red-hots—represented by Romney and Santorum, which are now increasingly likely to duke it out all spring.
Gawker recently published a piece on Romney’s fake-ness, a series of brutal zingers that may nevertheless contain some insights into the man’s image.
See also: Matt Taibbi’s explanation of how the Republican party is destroying itself.