The Mother-in-Law Index

She's a better predictor than any poll -- my mother-in-law, that is. Notwithstanding the fact that she is a registered independent and spends a good deal of time examining all the candidates before voting, she has bought the Bush line right from the beginning. All evil is embedded in George Soros. The jihadists want to take over the world, return the caliphate, murder us in our beds. The only protection is to strike them first. Racial profiling is unfortunate but necessary -- after all, our enemies are all dark-skinned Arab Muslims. Only the Republicans can save us. Listen to Fox News for a day or two, and you've got the idea.

Well, last night, she told my wife that for the first time in years she's voting for a Democrat for governor of Florida (don't know about the House and Senate races) because, "it's about time for these guys to be shaken up."

I don't know what was the tipping point -- the Mark Foley scandal, torture at Guantanamo, death of habeas corpus, the utter disaster in Iraq or what -- but something, or more likely a combination of things, tipped the scales.

My guess is that if she's been tipped, so have many, many others.