Even before Thanksgiving forces me to admit it, I'm feeling like one very lucky guy. One reason is that I get to do cool, fun stuff and call it work. Yesterday, I attended a luncheon at which columnist David Brooks was the speaker. He was smart, insightful, jovial and reasonable, as he usually is in his column, which makes him one of those conservatives to whom  fair-minded liberals can stand to listen. But he was also very, very funny — much funnier than in his column or in his regular TV gig opposite Mark Shields on the "The NewsHour" with Jim Lehrer.

So — and this is something I could never have gotten away with at the newspaper — I plan to save his more substantive points for short shrift at the end of this post and devote most of the space to his jokes. Here were some of the wisecracks, not necessarily verbatim quotes:

About his every Friday TV partner, liberal columnist Mark Shields:
Mark Shields has to get first billing in their weekly act, because otherwise it would be "Brooks Shields." (Barump bump.)

"It used to be Shields and Gigot. And before that Gergen and Shields. And before that I think it was Shields and Calvin Coolidge. (Barump.) Before that, Shields and Thomas Aquinas."

About his Minnesota connection:

Brooks married a girl whose family is from Detroit Lakes. "If you're from New York, as I am, you hear Detroit Lakes you think 'Newark Gardens?'"

By the time they got married, his wife was working for Sen. Dave Durenberger, who came to their wedding: "Sen. Durenberger pulled me aside and said, 'David, you should become a moderate Republican. It's the wave of the future...' That was good advice."

Logorrhea dementia

After paying tribute to Walter Mondale, whom he called one of his heroes (I forgot to mention, this luncheon was part of an annual symposium put on by Mondale's employer, the Dorsey law firm, and Mondale introduced Brooks at the event), Brooks said that Minnesota politicians are closer to being normal than most of the politicians he covers. Most politicians suffer from what Brooks calls "logorrhea dementia," which means "they talk so much that they drive themselves insane."

Mitt Romney

Brooks recalled traveling around New Hampshire with Mitt Romney. Romney would introduce himself to the people in a diner and ask them what town they were from. They would name a town and Romney "would describe the home he owned in their town."

The first coming of Obama

Brooks described the dinner he attended, with Barack Obama as the guest of honor, at George Will's house, on the night before Obama's inauguration:

"Obama was actually carried in by cherubs... Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Springsteen came ahead of him scattering rose petals.... Obama said to me, 'David, what kind of wine would you like me to turn your water into?"

Obama has hired all these very smart aides. Half of them went to Harvard and half of them went to Yale. "I always say that if we get attacked in the middle of the Harvard-Yale game, we're screwed."

Bush's IQ

President Bush (the second) was actually smarter when you talked to him in person than people realized. Brooks said he used to tell his liberal friends that and Bush's IQ is 60 points higher in private than what comes across in public. And they would say: "OK, that gets him up to 80."

Obamian niceness and self-confidence

Brooks discussed the key traits that differentiate Obama and his administration from others he had covered. One is extreme niceness. During previous administrations, when he would write a critical column, one of the aides would call him up and say, "David, you're a complete and total idiot." But when he writes something critical of Obama, one of the aides calls up and says: "David, we like you. We admire your work. It's so sad you're a complete and total idiot."

The other key traits of Obama that Brooks mentioned were perceptiveness, intelligence and total self-control. But he ended with: "The defining trait is self-confidence. I'm convinced that in 80 years the word 'Obama' will become a unit of self-confidence. People say, 'Oh, so and so, he has 80 Obamas."

A few serious thoughts

This wasn't a joke (but perhaps a bit of sucking up to the locals — I doubt he says this when he visits other states, except maybe South Carolina, but Brooks also said that when he asks himself which two current senators will have the greatest impact on America over the next 20 years, it's Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. He called Klobuchar "an absolute star, not just with her intelligence but with her style and being. She's going to modernize the meaning of being a U.S. senator."

Brooks likes many of the things Obama is trying to do, especially his ideas about education (because Brooks fears that the decline in U.S. education over recent decades has frittered away the essential quality that kept us at the head of the world pack). But he also thinks Obama is trying to do too many things too fast, and that Obama is spending too much money.

Obama is caught between two wings of his own Democratic coalition, liberals who think he's not proceeding quickly enough, and moderates who think he's proceeding too quickly. "Balancing these two will be a tremendous challenge," Brooks said. But by far the more important group is the moderates because without them you can't govern nor win elections.

Independents are now the largest single group of Americans and over recent cycles, Democrats have been winning them. The key to the Republican successes in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday were Republican success in the fast growing suburban counties where moderates and independents predominate. To Brooks, the most important results were not the two races for governor but a number of suburban counties where the voters threw out Dem-controlled county governments and voted in Republicans.

Brooks does not think Repubs are poised for a big comeback. Their problems are too deep, and these moderates and independents he's talking about are not turning into reliable Republican voters. But several recent polls have shown that among independents, there's been a sharp recent move to the right. The number who think government is doing too much leapt from 38 percent to 50 in the most recent sounding. The portion of self-identified independents who said they consider themselves conservative has leapt up, and the portion who said that unions are labor unions are too powerful hit a record high. These are the political challenges facing Obama and his party.

OK, enough seriosity (yes, I know it's not a word). At the end of his prepared remarks, Brooks said that he starts to get depressed about America, especially when contemplating the fiscal hole we have been digging for some years. But when he needs to feel cheerful and hopeful, he goes to the places where America shops. This set him off on a riff that featured the less political side of Brooks' work, as a satirist observer of American culture, as this brief audio clip below demostrates.

Will Minnesota's 2010 race for governor be the next referendum on gay marriage?

That's an oversimplification, because there will be many very clear issue differences in that race, especially in the general election. But it's not as much of an exaggeration as you might think.

All 10 of the DFL candidates support the right of gays and lesbians to marry. Not civil unions -- the full Monty. Marriage, with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities thereunto appertaining.

Some of the Dem candidates bring this up even in their brief two- or three-minute summaries of what they will do as governor. Former state Rep. Matt Entenza features prominently in the "issues" section of his campaign website that he co-authored the first bill that would have "redefined the legal definition of marriage to explicitly include two persons of the same gender." Others don't bring it up unless asked. But when asked, all say they will sign a same-sex marriage bill, although I gather the most current term for the idea is "marriage equality" (which is not an unreasonable term, but certainly has the whiff of the political Marketing Department about it).

None of the Republican gubernatorial candidates favor legalizing same-sex marriage.

In other words, leaving aside for the moment the Independence Party nominee (there are still no publicly known candidates from that party), the 2010 election will offer Minnesotans a fairly clear choice on, among other issues, gay marriage.

This story is all about movement, specifically movement on the political thinkability of gay marriage. If it seems intuitively obvious that the DFL would nominate a gay marriage advocate for governor, allow me to point out that it is unprecedented. With one possible exception, no major-party nominee for governor of Minnesota has ever been four-square for legalizing same-sex marriage.

The possible exception is state Sen. John Marty, who was the DFL nominee in 1994 and who is running for the nomination again this year (and who says that he expects to sign marriage equality into law within about three years). Marty says he has favored full equality for gays for many years, and did so in 1994, but doesn't recall whether his published positions that year included explicit reference to marriage. In fact, in 1994, legalized same-sex marriage was a left-fringe idea.

But let's talk about more recent history. In 2006, DFL nominee Mike Hatch explicitly stated that the word "marriage" was reserved for couples consisting of one man and one woman. Former state Sen. Steve Kelley was Hatch's chief rival for the 2006 DFL endorsement. Kelley recalls that he did not embrace full marriage rights for gays that year. He is a candidate again this year and does embrace full marriage equality.

All about movement

"I think it’s fair to say that I’ve moved," Kelley told me yesterday. "In 2006, I would’ve said civil unions, yes. Marriage, no. But I have become more comfortable saying, 'Let's just call it what it is -- marriage.' It will be a responsibility of the governor to have a conversation with Minnesotans and get them comfortable with that."

Kelley said that his own "journey" on the issue has a lot to do with having a gay brother. "If Jim and his partner decide to get married, I’d like to be able to go to his wedding in Minnesota, not in Iowa or California," Kelley said.

Until fairly recently, even gay marriage advocates felt that the M word was a political bridge too far, Kelley said. "But seeing the success of a gay marriage position in Iowa, a neighboring state with somewhat similar values, is one of those facts on the ground that has changed things," Kelley said. "It has changed the view of some folks in the GLBT community about how far and fast they would like to push the issue."

In 2008, all of the top tier Democratic presidential candidates (Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards) had essentially the same position, which was considered the politically smart liberal position at that time, which was that same-sex couples should have full rights to "civil unions," but not to "marriage."

Here's what Obama said, as candidate:

"I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman."

So, the fact that the DFL will almost certainly nominate a pro-gay-marriage candidate for governor can be taken as evidence that things are moving on this issue, and pretty quickly. To put it another way, it's reasonable to assume that — as has been the case ever since the gay marriage issue appeared on the political radar screen — no one who favored gay marriage could be nominated by the Republican Party for an important statewide office. But this latest development suggests that no one can win the DFL endorsement who opposes full marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

State Rep. Paul Thissen, who says yes, he favors the full marriage approach, also testifies to the movement on the issue. When he first ran for the Legislature in 2002, he said, all of the discussion about gay marriage was not about whether to legalize it, but whether to amend a one-man-one-woman definition of marriage into the state Constitution so no "activist" judge could change state law on the subject. Now, seven years later, you never hear about such an amendment, which could not pass in the Legislature. But there seems to be a growing possibility that a marriage equality bill could pass.

Wedge issue?

Let's assume that all of the candidates are sincere about wanting to legalize gay marriage as a matter of personal conscience and public policy. They are also politicians seeking election, so we must also assume that they believe emphasizing this issue is a political plus. And this calculation is surely true, as far as gaining the DFL endorsement and/or nomination.

But isn't it also quite possible that when the time comes to appeal to the statewide electorate, gay marriage will turn out to be one of those infamous wedge issues that Republicans can use to mobilize the social conservative base?

Of course, it is possible. University of Minnesota Law Professor Dale Carpenter, who is gay and a same-sex marriage advocate, thinks it's quite possible that the DFLers advocacy of gay marriage will be used as a wedge in the fall of 2010. Although the movement in favor of acceptance of same-sex marriage is palpable, and very welcome to Carpenter, he noted that gay marriage has been on the ballot as a referendum question 30 times around the country and "so far, we're 0 for 30."

He said that last week, before the big vote in Maine, where state voters were asked decide whether to strike down a law establishing marriage equality. When we spoke, I told Carpenter that the last pre-election polls showed a dead heat between yes and no votes. He replied that the pro-gay marriage side always did a few percentage points worse on Election Day than it did in the late polls. He was right. Mainers rejected gay marriage by about 53-47 percent.

"Marriage equality is not a majority position," Carpenter said. "Not nationally and not in Minnesota. So my guess would be that it's not going to turn out to be a plus, politically, in 2010." But then Carpenter doubled back and pointed out that Al Franken took an unequivocal position in favor of gay marriage in his campaign for the nomination, and Carpenter predicted that it would turn out to be "radioactive." (I wrote about this at the time, and about Mike Ciresi's fudging of the issue.) But, to Carpenter's surprise, he said, Republican Norm Coleman never made an issue of it against Franken. This example might also suggest that the DFL nominee for guv in 2010 won't necessarily face wedge issue ads on the marriage issue.

Carpenter also said that although gay marriage loses when it comes up in a referendum, it's hard to point to candidates who have lost elections because of a pro-gay-marriage position.

That gets back to something I mentioned at the top. The guv race will not really be a referendum on gay marriage. It will be a complicated mish-mash of referenda on many issues and non-issues. One DFL candidate I interviewed for this story, state Sen. Tom Bakk, (yes, he would sign a marriage equality bill, Bakk said, and yes, the fact that all candidates have the same position is a function of base politics, but he didn't seem to think my idea for this post was all that swift) said that the fiscal and economic issues besetting Minnesota should and must be the main topic of the campaign.

"The person that can connect with the public on that issue will be the next governor," Bakk said. "This election has nothing to do with the base. It has to do with what’s on the mind of swing voters and they're not gonna be thinking about social issues."

We'll see.

Ventura's position

p.s. Some of the people I talked to for this story believed that Minnesota has already had a pro-gay-marriage governor, namely Jesse Ventura. That's not quite right. In "Do I Stand Alone?," a book that Ventura brought out in 2000 in the middle of his term as Minnesota governor, he stopped short of the full Monty. He wrote:

"I support the idea of a legally recognized domestic partnership for gay couples. There are honors & privileges that go along with being in a permanent committed partnership, as well as responsibilities & benefits to society, and I don’t think that people should be denied the opportunity to achieve these things just because they love a person of the same sex.

"It often happens today that a committed gay couple isn’t permitted to function the way a committed (married) heterosexual couple would, [such as in hospital visitations]. Legalized gay partnerships would allow gays to become something they have never become before in the eyes of the law: family.

"But I draw the line at calling gay partnerships 'marriage.' Marriage is something different. My dictionary says marriage is a union between a man and a woman. I don’t think we need to be diluting that definition just to make sure gays have the privilege of being in a committed union. I think a term like 'domestic partnership' works fine."

More recently (2008), Ventura has described a different position based on separation of church and state. The state should get out of the business of defining marriage, Ventura said, but require as a matter of civil rights that all couples have equal rights, irrespective of gender. Then leave it to the churches to decide what kinds of unions they each want to sanctify with the M word, with no effect on the legal and economic rights of couples.

Federal Magistrate Susan Richard Nelson will be nominated for the vacant federal judgeship from Minnesota, I'm reliably informed.

Nelson, who had been a federal magistrate since 2000, has been rumored for some time to be among the top contenders to fill the vacancy created when U.S. Judge James Rosenbaum took senior status. Minnesota Appeals Court Judge Mimi Wright had been considered another leading contender for the nomination.

A search committee has been working to winnow the field and arrive at a recommendation, which will flow from the committee to the Minnesota's U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, to the Justice Department. Technically, Nelson will be nominated by Pres. Obama and her nomination will have to be approved by the U.S. Senate.

Klobuchar, the senior senator, is very familiar with Minnesota lawyers and judges from her days as Hennepin County attorney and was surely the key player in the selection process.

A federal judgeship is a lifetime appointment and, to the legal community, each appointment is a major deal. There has been talk that whoever got this appointment might soon considered for the appointment to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Minnesota. Judge Diana Murphy, the only Minnesotan with Democratic origins on that court, could soon take senior status on that court. Murphy is also the only woman (ever, actually) on that appellate court, which may be among the reasons that most of the leading contenders for the Minnesota vacancy were female.

Nelson was born in 1952, graduated from Oberlin College and University of Pittsburgh law school. She practiced with Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi before becoming a magistrate. She was closely associated with Mike Ciresi and was among the top members of his team that won the big multi-billion-dollar 1998 settlement between Minnesota and big tobacco.

Before joining the bench, Nelson made a few political contributions to federal candidates, all to Democrats.

Nelson is married to Tom Nelson, a prominent Twin Cities business litigator currently with the firm of Leonard, Street and Deinard.

Gov. Pawlenty got grilled pretty hard on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program about his decision to spurn Republican nominee Dede Scozzafava and back Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman in that upstate New York special election for the U.S. House. (As you may know, Scozzafava has since withdrawn from the race and endorsed the Democrat, Bill Owens, a pretty weird/wild development.)

Anyway, Pawlenty was one of several Repubs who endorsed the Conservative when there was still a Repub in the race, which has led to a lot of analysis about whether Republicans can tolerate diversity of views. That was the subject of the Morning Joe interrogation of Pawlenty by several (mostly liberal) panel members. Pawlenty attempted to sketch out a view that you don't have to agree with the Republican mainstream on everything, but that Scozzafava, who has favored tax increases, supported card check for union certifications, supported the Obama stimulus bill, and has also taken liberal positions on abortion and gay marriage, was outside what Pawlenty called the "guardrails" that define a Republican.

"She didn't meet even the minimum standard" to deserve Republican support, Pawlenty said. He also faulted the process by which Scozzafava received the Republican nomination. NBC political guru Chuck Todd pressed Pawlenty to define the "minimum standard." Scarborough pressed TPaw on whether Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) belonged in the Republican big tent.

Pawlenty stood his ground, although he was notably unwilling to say anything friendly on Snowe nor to clarify whether she was inside or outside the guardrails. He won't win any straight talk points for his answers about Sen. Snowe.

Here's the video:

The Morning Joe crowd was pretty amazed by Pawlenty's answers on Snowe, and took it as evidence that Pawlenty was pandering to the conservative base with the Iowa caucuses in mind. They seemed to have only just figured out that Pawlenty is not currently positioning himself as the moderate in the 2012 Repub field. They were so amazed by Tpaw on Snowe that they did a whole second segment analyzing his word choices. For the truly Pawlenty obsessed, here's that clip:

"In 1970, two psychologists at a small college in Michigan performed the following experiment. After administering a questionnaire on racial attitudes to seniors at some nearby high schools, they divided the students into groups. Those students who, based on their answers to the questionnaire, exhibited “high prejudice” were placed with others equally biased. Those who expressed “low prejudice” were grouped with those who were similarly tolerant. The students were then instructed to discuss issues like school busing and fair housing. Finally, they were asked to fill out another questionnaire. The surveys revealed a striking pattern: simply by talking to one another, the bigoted students had become more bigoted and the tolerant more tolerant."

The paragraph above is lifted from the current (Nov. 2) New Yorker, from a fine review by Elizabeth Kolbert of a new book by Cass Sunstein, a legal scholar and currently an Obama Administration official.  The new Sunstein book is “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done.” Kolbert is interested in things like the "birther" foolishness, in which people who do not want to accept that Barack Obama is president of their country convince themselves that he is not a natural-born citizen in spite of constant affirmation and proof that he was born in Hawaii in 1961. (Says Kolbert of the birthers' continuing belief that Obama was born in Kenya: "As articles of faith go, this one falls somewhere between a belief in Santa Claus and 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'”) But Kolbert's is not an article on birtherism, Sunstein's is not a a book about it and this is not a post about it either.

I was mostly interested in passing along that 1970 psych experiment as a follow-up to a post of a couple of weeks ago called "Turn up the static so I can't hear what I want to not hear." That post also featured a psych experiment -- one that demonstrated people's tendency to tune out information that doesn't agree with or even challenges their pre-existing beliefs.

If you put the two together, you get a fairly alarming picture. Excuse in advance the colossal oversimplification/exaggeration just ahead. It goes like this:

The first experiment suggested that homo sapiens don't want to know the facts so much as they want to keep believing in their own preferred version of the truth. The second suggested that when we hang out with those who believe the same things we do, we become even more dug in and around a more extreme version of our preferred version of the truth.

Me, I like almost everything about the web-based system for finding and spreading information, but not everything. The flaws described in the oversimplification above are rooted in human nature, not in computer chips. But to the degree that webification makes it easier for people to wire their computers to help them wire their brains so they can constantly reinforce what they already believe, it makes actual learning, civil disagreement and the search for common ground among those who don't start out standing on the same ground all that much harder and less likely.

What think?