The always-must-read Heather Mac Donald in the always-must-read City Journal:

…for all the evasions of the political and educational elites, the growing anti-preference push, with initiatives contemplated in several more states in 2008, could be one of the most important populist movements of recent years. Racial manipulation, while not eliminated from California, has been greatly reduced, a sea change that never would have happened without Prop. 209. One goal of the movement—the elimination of the academic achievement gap by setting a single standard of achievement for all to meet—remains elusive. But Ward Connerly’s courageous pursuit of a government that ignores race is delivering on the most fundamental promise of the American Constitution: equal treatment for all.

Conservatives asked at the NR Summit last weekend: Where are the leaders?

Two words: Ward Connerly.

Connerly’s shameful treatment by liberal elites is topped only by his shameful treatment by GOP elites–some with the surname Bush–who have subverted his and his vast supporters’ efforts to secure equal treatment for all every step of the way.