Not long ago, the President of one of America’s flagship universities was sitting with its top government affairs staffer, musing, for a change, about something other than fundraising and faculty recruitment.

‘Is it possible,’ asked the President, a liberal of good standing, ‘that Democrats might actually blow the 2008 election?’ The staffer, a product of Washington’s policy-making scene who often travels to the capital on university business, replied, ‘I’ve been thinking that all along.’