Terrance Heath

This strange political season gets stranger by the day. The things I'm hearing and seeing from Newt Gingrich and Cory Booker today reminded me of a song from one of the last (and, in my opinion, underrated) albums by Culture Club; my favorite band from my 80's youth. The lyric that comes to mind is from the band's 1984 single, "Mistake No. 3," when Boy George sings of people getting "dragged into a conversation they can't hold."

It's been 28 years, and I still can't figure out what that song's about. But, it's not hard to figure out that, despite coming at Mitt Romney's Bain Capital history from opposite sides, Newt Gingrich and Booker let themselves get dragged into conversations they can't hold.

The 2012 presidential election may go down as one of the strangest political seasons in recent memory, for the simple reason that the influence of the financial sector in politics, policy and the economy has caused Republicans to sound like Democrats and Democrat to Sound like Republicans — usually with confounding results. When Republicans sound like Democrats, like Newt Gingrich attacking Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, they tend to start arguments they can't win. When Democrats start sounding like Republicans, like Cory Booker defending Bain Capital, they tend forfeit arguments they could win. That's because, in both cases, the politicians are arguing about the wrong things, in order to avoid the real argument  — the one America needs to have, and Americans need to win; the argument over what kind of economy we will have going forward.

My first reaction to the now-famous Washington Post story of how an 18-year-old Mitt Romney bullied and assaulted a fellow student at the prestigious Cranbrook School was personal. The story is well known by now. Romney objected to John Lauber's bleach blonde hair, draped over one eye, and organized fellow students to tackle and pin down the "soft-spoken," nonconforming student while Mitt himself snipped way at the offending locks. I was bullied for years in middle school and high school, and have never forgotten the experience. I understood the story and context viscerally, on a personal level.

But the personal is almost always political. The more I thought about it, the more I saw the story in a political context; and the parallels between Romney's prep-school bullying and the politics, policies, and tactics of present-day conservatism became clear.

Told ya so.

President Obama nearly cost me five bucks. In the build-up to his historic interview with ABC's Robin Roberts, a co-worker announced that he would bet $5 that President Obama would end his evolution on same-sex marriage by announcing his support for marriage equality. At least at least one person took him up on it.

If I were a gambling man, I'd have made that bet; certain that by the end of the day I'd have an extra $5 in my pocket. In fact, I was so sure of it that I almost made that bet, though I would have taken no pleasure in winning. Of course, I now know I would have lost. But it's a bet I would have been happy to lose.

Last month, blogs were abuzz about recent studies suggesting that wealth reduces compassion — that increasing wealth corresponds with decreasing empathy for others. That's gotta be one of the reasons Mitt Romney — one of the the richest people to run for president in 20 years— could stand in front of audience of college students in Ohio and tell them "Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business," without acknowledging that many of those students will struggle to find jobs and pay student loans after graduation? How else could Romney regale students with a story about a friend of his who borrowed $20,000 from his parents to start a business, and remain utterly oblivious to the parents of most of the students in the audience probably didn't have $20,000 to lend them in the first place?