I agree (of course) that this is an important election, with more than the usual watershed elements to it. However, I cannot agree that we can know ahead of the fact that this election matters "...like only a few others (...in history...)." First, EVERY Presidential election is important: Someone gets in, and someone else with a very different set of important ideas gets left out. Secondly, it is almost impossible ahead of time to declare that one matters a lot, another less so, and so on. Suppose Gore had beaten Bush? Suppose Nixon had beaten JFK? How different would things be today, in either of just those two events? I think a responsible citizenry must be very careful about making the leap from "important" (granted) to something far BEYOND that. That's a step toward grandiosity, and presumes more than is given to us as human beings to foretell.

As to Democrats (or anyone else) sort of implicitly "falling in line", I don't think that's what we do. Those are the OTHER guys. Our strength (if I might be so presumptuous) is in our fundamental honesty to the facts. I'm not the strongest Obama supporter myself, for reasons I've clearly stated in here and elsewhere. Nevertheless, I'll go as far as I can to support him as best I can, until such point comes that I just can't go further. Meanwhile, I'll keep calling it as this one entirely fallible mortal sees it. I'll try to add something to the totality of the TRUTH, for better or worse, and let the chips fall. My sense is that that straightforward approach will bring us out on the right side in the end. If it doesn't, so be it.

As a younger boomer who was dying to get in on the action as a teenybopper and even worked to graduate early in order to get to the college action at the tail end of 71, I am still amazed to see some think of this as "the election of our lives" partly because the presidential candidate has black skin. Guess you had to be there in the mid and late 60's to see the election of a president with a black face as something so seminal, especially since we already was a Senator with a black face, and we have had two Secretary of States with a black faces in the last 8 years. I see transitions, not milestones; and I am pointing that out to you, a professor of sociiology, because I have an inkling that that might have to do with what you saw as a boomer and how old you were when you saw it.

Your son Michael may very well be witnessing the American equivalent of Mandela being released from jail. That might seem like hyperbole, but anyone with doubts should just ask someone in the black community over 50 (and some under).

To Artappraiser:

Race is only a part of this election. It is the election of our lives because it offers the possibility of turning away from trends toward galloping economic inequality and vicious, right-galloping politics that have been underway since the 1970s and 1980s. No one election will do it, certainly, but this election has a starker choice than most throughout U.S. history.

I am a professor of political science and a longtime student of American politics. The trends I am talking about were carefully researched in my books BOOMERANG: HEALTH CARE REFORM AND THE TURN AGAINST GOVERNMENT; DIMINISHED DEMOCRACY; and THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS. So I reflect as a scholar as well as in my capacity as a citizen. Thanks.

Well done. In particular, I appreciate your comments about Carville and Wilenty and the Henny Penny's of the Party.

We got work to do. The history, the analysis, the post mortems can wait until January.

Part of me sees the first major black candidate and thinks, here is an amazing milestone in history. Another part thinks, this should be considered normal.

A big part of me thinks that we've got a great candidate who has a huge potential to do good in the White House, and him being black is just icing on the cake.

Theda:

How right you are in this beautifully-written piece. I fear also that if we do not elect Obama in 2008, and instead give the right-wingers the permission and opportunity to continue apace with the corruption and gutting of the Federal government, that the country will not recover and the presidency will never again fall into Democratic hands.

The pieces are quite clearly in place to accomplish nearly all of the right-wing objectives solely through the executive branch without concern for the makeup of the Congress. Elections will continue to be thrown, the courts will continue to be packed, opposition will be punished and dealt with, and all remnants of the New Deal will be dismantled. That is why the presidency is so urgently important right now.

I think that we shall soon start hearing arguments from the pundits and right-wing think-tankers about the desirability of divided government. In my view, those arguments no longer holds water in view of the Republicans arrogating nearly all of the power of the Federal government into the Executive branch. I hope that those who are more eloquent than I, like you Theda, will anticipate and counter these arguments sooner rather than later.

Theda: Your thoughts are deeply appreciated as my wife and I lived through the same events as you have and realize that this is the election of our lives and one that we have recognized since 2000 and especially 2004. We must turn over the pages of history now and never look back with the loss of our rights and the many lives taken by the Bush years and many complicit players of both parties. I hope you will continue to guide us and at times soothe us because the real slime and GOP attacks begin next week and it will such garbage thrown at us! Stay w/ us you serve a need for us here at TPM.

This may not be the most important election in US History, but it is the most important in my (long) lifetime. The contrasts between these two candidates, and where they want to take America could not be higher. I am not engaging in hyperbole when I assert that John McCain DREAMS of WWIII as an opportunity for the honor and glory the soldiery was unable to harvest at the conclusion of the Viet Nam war. If you think Bush was belligerent, you ain't seen nothing yet. Hello, draft! Hello Martial Law! With the Graham clan at the financial helm, the gaming of the US banking and commodities markets will be complete. Citizens must engage one another like never before. My wife told me her 58 year old co worker, a special ed teacher, today told her that he could not vote for Obama cause he just did not like Michelle. She seemed angry. My wife is a friend and felt compelled to read him the riot act. Friends, don't let friends vote Republican. This time it is a fight for our lives. This is not bombast! This is not rhetoric. This is a time for disciplined focus. We owe nothing less.

It feels as if this election is a referendum on America (and what it is to be an American) but I am shy about sounding so dramatic.

Obama knows full well that his task is not against McCain or the Republicans but against cynicism, a cynicism that hangs on all our houses like kudzu that's fed raw meat by the media.

But if Obama can just get people to see that their vote is about our collective opportunity for a better future and not about whether or not they would have a beer with him, then it is won.

Yet there is such an irresistible temptation, or willingness, for too many Americans to be superficial and act as if it's weak to ask questions and demand better of ourselves, especially those in power.

So here's the rub: Rovian politics preys upon cynicism by elevating ignorance and selfishness. They say: "Don't trust those who think they're smart. Trust those you know. no matter what"

Stupidity is their friend. DO NOT TRUST THOSE WHO WANT TO HELP YOU. THEY CANNOT BE TRUSTED BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN YOU.

Oh, and, trust me instead.

But we are not stupid. We are tired. And when you're tired you listen to the dumbest shit and say you believe it just to get them to shut the fuck up.

I hope that we can, as Kucinich implored, "wake up!" in time.

Let's take back our country

Very Peggy Noonan-ish post.

"The nomination of Senator Barack Obama, as combined with the prospect of the nomination of Senator John McCain, has settled almost nothing other than the fact of those nominations themselves. The world as a whole is presently gripped by a growing potential for a genuine thermonuclear-weapons crisis like never before, at the same time that the greatest financial-economic crisis since Europe's Fourteenth Century has the entire world presently in its grip--whether some governments and leading political figures wish to recognize that reality, or not.

"The present international financial system is hopelessly bankrupt, and could not be saved. It could only be reorganized in a bankruptcy designed to defend people, not financial speculators.

"Neither of the two referenced candidates has any present capability for successfully meeting the grave challenges of economic breakdowns of entire economies, and threats of nuclear exchanges, which must be expected as serious possibilities between now and November.

http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/08/29/larouche-outlines-organizational-policy-now.html