The question of electability in the general election is the only one that matters anymore in the race for the Democratic nomination, and ABC’s moderators did a good job because they kept that in mind. Gibson and Stephanopolous asked questions about the candidates’ personal associations and the controversies surrounding some of their public positions (such as Obama’s decision to stop wearing a flag lapel pin). When the questions did focus on substantial matters, they concerned things like the right to bear arms, affirmative action, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the capital-gains tax.

Blogger Andrew Sullivan’s reaction was typical of many -- he called it “one of the worst media performances I can remember -- petty, shallow, process-obsessed, trivial where substantive, and utterly divorced from the actual issues that Americans want to talk about.” By those, he meant things like “the environment... interrogation [of terror suspects]... [and] healthcare.” But ABC’s debate was a success because it steered clear of issues like these, i.e. issues on which the candidates mostly agree. How many times have we heard Clinton and Obama argue endlessly over what amounts to a very minor difference in their health-care plans?  

The culture wars between Red and Blue States are driven in large part by these objective differences in how family-friendly they are, financially speaking. For example the liberal San Francisco-Oakland area is twice as expensive as the conservative Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The BestPlaces.net calculator reports, “To maintain the same standard of living, your salary of $100,000 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, California could decrease to $49,708 in Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas.”

Affordable family formation won’t predict who will win this November. But it offers profound implications for long-range political strategies. For example, the late housing bubble, over which Republicans George W. Bush and Alan Greenspan complacently presided, reduced the affordability of family formation, which should help the Democrats in the long run.