Following on the heels of yesterday’s Pew poll about certain “global warming”-related attitudes, last night I learned that cap-and-trade and Kyoto are to voters what the Bronx is to Manhattan cabbies: the more they learn about where you’re really going, the less they want anything to do with it. So you start out with some benign-sounding misdirection: “green jobs” — or in my cab-catching case “oh uptown . . . I’ll get an address momentarily.” That subterfuge became necessary after two cabs sped off at the first mention of “The Bronx” — leaving me standing forlorn like McCain and Lieberman after the Senate did the same to them (also twice). Maybe I should have tried the “national security” argument.

This particular cabbie was much like me, in that once the relevant and unwelcome information was presented, he rolled down the window at every stop to tell anyone who would listen.

So it was that I eventually arrived for a talk sponsored by the Fordham College Republican Club, made possible like so many such talks by the Young America’s Foundation. I know a few Fordham grads all of whom evidence a rigorous training, but this iced the cake and I would enthusiastically send my boys there if they wished.

It is by now a common and humbling experience to meet these students so vastly more together and impressive than I ever showed hints of becoming at their age. These College Republicans were model citizens to my mind. Further, the obviously mixed audience — asking nuanced questions — was respectful and engaged, with none of the ritual sneering, storming, hissing, coughing fits I regularly encounter when college students have their belief system challenged. In short, they all behaved with the civility that conservatives have long been known for extending to others (a reputation that has left our current political class swooning, aghast over the recent and ongoing displays of voters having had enough).

Good show, Fordham.