The Republicans Embrace the Cootie Effect

Back in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, simply being friends with someone suspected of being a Communist could ruin your career.  It became known as "guilt by association."  During this year's presidential campaign, however, it's been extended to guilt by spatial proximity, which could appropriately be called the "cootie effect." If you sit on the same board, have appeared at the same event or otherwise have been in close physical proximity of someone deemed undesirable, you therefore must have been infected by their politics or, at minimum, have no probl