When January’s jobs report was released, the unexpectedly large spike in employment was welcome news to just about everybody except Mitt Romney and the Republicans. If the “Obama economy” keeps getting better, what the heck will the GOP run on? How to fire up the folk with the kind of indignation that propels conservative voters to the polls en masse? Now we have an answer: another culture war.

In the summer of 2008, revving up for the general-election campaign against John McCain, Barack Obama raised some eyebrows by telling a group of Philadelphians: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” He wasn’t talking about fundraising specifically—he was emphasizing his ability to give a punch as well as take it—but he might as well have been: Obama also dismayed some supporters by eschewing the public financing system to make sure he had more than enough artillery ($750 million, in fact) to fend off the Republicans that year.