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                BORN REPUBLICAN by Daniel Mendelsohn.


 The startling discovery that affiliation with the Republican party
 is genetically determined was announced by scientists in the current
 issue of the journal "Nurture."  Reports of the gene that codes for
 political conservatism, discovered after a long study of quintuplets
 in Orange County, Calif., has sent shock waves through the medical,
 political, and golfing communities.

 Psychologists and psychoanalysts have long believed that Republicans'
 unnatural and frequently unconstitutional tendencies result from
 unhealthy family life -- a remarkably high percentage of Republicans
 had authoritative, domineering fathers and emotionally distant mothers
 who didn't teach them how to be kind and gentle. But biologists  have
 long suspected that conservatism is inherited. "After all," said one
 author of the "Nurture" article, "It's quite common for a Republican to
 have a brother or a sister who is a Republican."

 The finding has been greeted with relief by parents and friends of
 Republicans, who have tended to blame themselves for the political
 views of otherwise lovable people -- their children, friends, and
 unindicted co-conspirators.

 One mother, a longtime Democrat, clasped her hands in ecstasy on
 hearing of the findings. "I just knew it was genetic," she said,
 seated beside her two sons, both avowed Republicans. "I just knew
 that nobody would actually choose that life style!" When asked what
 the Republican life style was, she said, "Well, you can just tell
 from watching TV, like at the convention in Houston: the loud outfits,
 the flaming xenophobia, the flamboyant demagogy -- you know."

 Both sons said they had suspected their Republicanism from an early
 age but did not confirm it until they were in college, when they
 became convinced it wasn't just a phase they were going through.

 Despite the near-certainty of the medical community of Republicanism's
 genetic origins, troubling issues remain. The "Nurture" article offered
 no response to the suggestion that the startlingly high incidence of
 Republicanism among siblings could result from the fact that they
 share not only genes but also psychological and emotional attitudes,
 being the products of the same parents and family dynamics.

 And it remains to be explained why so many avowed Democrats are known
 to vote Republican occasionally -- or at least to fantasize about doing
 so. Polls show that three out of five Democrats admit to having had a
 Republican experience. In well-adjusted people, however, this
 experimentation rarely outlasts adolescence.

 Surprisingly, some Republican activists hail the findings as a step
 forward rather than as an invitation to more conservophobia. They
 argue that since Republicans didn't "choose" their unwholesome life
 style any more than someone "chooses" to have a ski-jump nose, they
 shouldn't be denied civil rights to which normal people are entitled.

 Other Republicans, recalling 19th-century scientific studies that
 "proved" the mental inferiority of blacks, find the frenzied search
 for the biological cause of Republicanism pointless, if not downright
 sinister.

 But for most real Americans, the discovery opens a window on a
 brighter tomorrow. In a few years, gene therapy could eradicate
 Republicanism altogether.

 If conservatism is not the result of sheer orneriness (as many
 suspect) but is something Republicans can't help and probably don't
 even like, there's no reasons why we shouldn't tolerate Republicans in
 the military or even high elected office -- provided they don't flaunt
 their political beliefs.