Suddenly, everyone loves the 'burbs. Republicans are re-discoverying them after the whuppin' of 2008 when their suburban-friendly gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi and their mainstream presidential candidate John McCain were abandoned by swing voters.

In Crosscut, former state Republican party chair Chris Vance all but wrote off the GOP's chances in this state, and the country as a whole, if it can't woo back suburbia. Apparently, the folks out on the crabgrass frontier like a little thing called "competence." Writes Vance: "If Republicans can’t add college educated white suburbanites back to their coalition of rural voters and evangelicals then they can’t win, period."

But Republicans aren't the only ones who want to cultivate (or is it corrupt?) secular suburbanites. Frank Chopp and the Democrats, for one, have been toiling in those fields recruiting suburban friendly candidates and finding converts. Seattle's Eastside is not quite Darcy Burner country yet, but hope springs eternal.

The latest suburban convert is The Stranger which has announced a new effort to drum up circulation on the Eastside. The editor says the Seattle-based weekly plans to expand distribution in Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland and Redmond. No big deal. Newspapers have to find readers where they can.

But let's at least note that this is the newspaper that once declared war on the suburbs and positioned itself as protector of the blue "urban archipelago." This is the paper that criticized a certain mossy editor of Seattle Weekly forliving in Kirkland (now ground zero for The Stranger's new circulation boost). And this is the paper that runs headlines like, oh, "Fuck the suburbs."

What's next? Running David Brooks alongside "Savage Love"? One can only hope.