The battle of the suburbs

[All Along The Watchtower]

As has been often noted, white-collar suburbia, once perhaps the epicenter of Republican Party dominance in the United States, has moved away from the Republicans as the Democrats have become more right-wing, the Republicans have become more rigidly ideological and, frankly, extremist,, and the maturing suburbs, once bastions of white flight for anxious middle-class families and individuals who valued privacy above all else, have in many cases, become more urbanized and diverse in demographic makeup.

However, Mitt Romney is (in theory, at least) the kind of Republican who could make serious inroads in Obama's suburban electoral support.

So, what does it look like? Is the Republican Party too toxic and extreme nowadays for suburbia? Or will Obama's purported weakness on the economy be the opening that Romney needs?