Michael Calderone of Politico reports that the McCain campaign tried to hire an AP reporter and editor, Ron Fournier, as a senior adviser. Fournier has been criticized by liberals for being allegedly too personally friendly with McCain and also Karl Rove. But Mark Salter, who works for McCain, said “that Fournier was an attractive target because of his knowledge about the political process, not because of his ideological or partisan leanings. Salter says he still does not know what, if any, those are.”

Here’s another theory. Ron Fournier has some interesting and explicit ideological leanings, but they aren’t conventionally liberal or conservative. They are populist in a particular way: enthusiastic about local self-government, deliberation, and public participation. I say this because of an opinion piece that Fournier wrote, based on a survey that I helped to design and analyze for the National Conference on Citizenship. He wrote:

It happens every election year: Pollsters slice and dice the electorate, identify an important new group and give those voters a fad-worthy monicker. Reagan Democrats. Angry Men. Soccer Moms.

Here’s a heads-up on what should be the dynamite demographic of 2008: “The Civic Core.”

That’s the name given to 36 million Americans who actively discuss society’s problems and work to solve them. These community-building citizens are both a key to the nation’s future and a valuable resource for political candidates.

And yet, with few exceptions, Democrats and Republicans alike are giving the Civic Core — and community service itself — short shrift.

… Microtarget that.

John McCain could make an interesting appeal to this civic core. He has a lifetime record of service and leadership and could broaden those ideas by explaining how ordinary civilians can also lead and serve at home. He could criticize arrogant bureaucrats and judges (conservative targets) but also strongly support programs that expand opportunities for civic work–charter schools, voluntary national service programs, the Peace Corps, and community development corporations. I haven’t seen him do any of this yet–at least, not effectively–but it may explain why he was interested in Fournier.

Having just landed in Belmont, Massachusetts, with our bags and boxes hardly unpacked, my family and I are off to Prague and other parts of the Czech Republic tomorrow morning. I will be treating my Internet addiction by not going online to check the latest polls or to post anything here. I think I will be able to stay disconnected, because apparently “Places remote enough are in Bohemia” [Winter’s Tale, III:3]. Back on July 30.

We bought our new house in Belmont, MA, yesterday. For the two weeks before that, my family had remained in Washington while I lived in a Tufts University dorm room. Colleagues seem surprised and amused that I, gray and 41, should choose to live in a dorm. I thought it made practical sense: no commute, no shopping, no cooking. Of course, I could have had floor-mates who were a little more–shall we say?–lively late at night than I am used to in my staid middle age. At first, however, there was no one else on my floor–just rows of open doors and swept-out rooms that reminded me a little of “The Shining.” Then the doors were all closed and there were subtle signs of human habitation. The bathroom light, for instance, would be on in the middle of the night, when I had definitely switched it off before going to sleep. But no sounds. Who else could be living on the third floor of South Hall?

I found out one evening when I shared the elevator with a dozen Spanish-speaking nuns. A half-a-dozen more couldn’t fit on and had to wait for the next one. They wore gray habits and none was taller than my shoulder. They were so quiet and tidy that I can truly say: when it comes to floormates, better nun than none.

In free moments, I’m revising what I call my “Dante book,” which is actually an argument about the moral value of literature. The peer reviewer said that I should explain how my project fits in with recent academic debates about philosophy and literature. My readers will be familiar with at least some of these debates and will want to understand where I stand in relation to other authors.

I have usually resisted doing too much of that sort of “positioning.” I don’t like to assume that readers already know a given academic literature; I prefer to assume a broader or more public audience. I don’t like to read mainly or only works that are currently influential. (My Dante book is heavily annotated, with 460 footnotes, but many of my sources are obscure and old.) Sometimes positioning strikes me as an alternative to argument. A writer may say, “My stance is more communitarian than Rawls but more liberal than Sandel.” That makes him or her look reasonable, but it doesn’t add anything to our knowledge or understanding.

Yet, in this case, I have found the reviewer’s advice useful. There is value to engaging with a current discussion, and doing so explicitly. Also, I have had to do more systematic reading on the ethical uses of fiction. Inevitably, I have learned from this reading. Above all, I have realized that there is much more current interest in ethical interpretation than I knew. (See, for instance, Amanda Anderson.) That means that some of my claims in the earlier draft of the manuscript were false. I wrote it as a manifesto for a new kind of criticism, but exactly that kind of criticism is being widely practiced now. In other words, I was already engaging with a current debate, but I had mischaracterized it. If you are going to comment on the state of argument, you should at least do a thorough literature review first.

I was amazed to read that a senior official at ACORN (“the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people”) embezzled nearly $1 million in 1999-2000. Instead of being fired, he was reassigned and asked to pay the money back on a generous installment plan: $30,000/year. No one was told what he had done, not even the board. This man happens to be the brother of the organization’s founder.

I think about the times I gave money to ACORN when canvassers in my neighborhood played on my guilt. I was always reluctant or ambivalent. I didn’t (and still don’t) have the full picture of how ACORN operates. I acknowledge my limited understanding and don’t see myself as an informed critic. But there were times when the organization seemed to make poor people look like sheer victims, instead of developing and celebrating their agency. ACORN seemed to divide the world into the victims, their protectors, and their enemies, which is not a way to learn from other people or build communities.

Now we read that millions of dollars of contributions were actually paying for embezzlement and a cover-up. Founder Wade Rethke “said the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a ‘weapon’ into the hands of enemies of Acorn …. ‘We thought it best at the time to protect the organization, as well as to get the funds back into the organization, to deal with it in-house,’ said Maude Hurd, president of Acorn.”

This was obviously a mistake. Ethically, it meant putting the interests of the staff and the organization ahead of the donors and people served. Practically, it was foolish because the scandal had to come out, sooner or later. It reflected the division of the world into heroes and enemies that I mentioned above. It also presumed that the heroic ACORN was indispensable, so that any embarrassment to the organization had to be avoided at all costs. No organization is above reproach, none can be allowed to police itself, and none is indispensable.

Even today, the ACORN website makes no mention of the embezzlement. Recent news items highlighted on its home page include: “Landmark ACORN Foreclosure Bill Becomes Law in California” and “ACORN Helps Launch $40 Million Healthcare Campaign Nationwide.” An apology would help, although for me personally, it is too late.

[Update, July 11: ACORN now has a formal apology, which they sent to me.]