Where Will the 2008 Election Leave Us?

In the current 24/7 political news cycle, with its rapid-fire sound bites and he said/she said sensationalism, it’s not often enough that bloggers step back and look at the big picture of what’s unfolding in the 2008 Presidential election. Hats off to my friend Michael at Best Destiny for some keen (and honest) insights in the wake of last night’s Democratic primary results from Indiana and North Carolina:

With the Left lurching through its own 60s-esque upheaval, and the GOP tragically unable to get its footing over the last four years, it’s very hard to see how this isn’t a time of seismic change in the American political world.

This is a time for ideals and orators and men of character and greatness. I don’t know who those men–or women–would be, but I’m a little bit fearful that if this country can’t find them soon, we might just be in for a long, bumpy ride into relative irrelevancy.

You really should read the whole piece, but it is the conclusion I quoted that gets to the heart of the matter, and it’s because electoral politics in a representative democracy by its very nature tends to be short-sighted.

There well may be “seismic change” ahead. Traditional coalition fault lines and the beloved Red State-Blue State model may disappear and give way to a new conventional wisdom about national politics.

What will happen in the 2008 election? All bets are off.

Where will the 2008 election leave our country? My hunch is that our major political candidates will be among the last to figure it out. And we may just reap what we have sown.