Come on, People! This is the Third Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

Regardless of which side you're on, I think you'll agree that this year's presidential election is awfully important. The voters have been presented with a clear choice between two candidates with fundamental differences in their backgrounds and levels of experience and in their plans for our country's future. The significance of this year's election is amplified by the global economic crisis, the unsettled situation in Iraq, and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

In fact, by my estimation, this is the third most important election of my lifetime.

So it's a little discouraging that, despite unprecedented interest, the best estimates of likely voter turnout on November 4th still hover at around 60%.

That's right. More than a third of our fellow citizens will not bother to vote, not just on who will be our next president but to select their senators, congressmen, and whether to approve a broad variety of local ballot measures.

Now admittedly, the importance of a particular election is somewhat subjective. For those of you who lived through World War II, I'm sure the 1940 election between FDR and Wendell Wilkie makes this one look pretty insignificant. After all, Wilkie was a corporate stooge who had never held prior office. Sure, he was a fresh face but novelty wears off in politics just like it does in everything else.

If you voted in the middle of the Korean or Vietnam wars in 1952 or 1968, those must have seemed like crucial elections, especially considering how strongly the candidates differed on what to do going forward. I think we can agree that elections held during wartime (like those in 1940, '44, '52, '60, '64, '68, '72, 2000, and '04) are always especially important.

In addition, the social upheaval in '68 (not to mention the participation of the segregationist George Wallace) pretty much guaranteed that that election would be in most people's top three. As it turned out, the country wound up with Richard Nixon and we all know what happened to him (though few would have predicted the ultimate outcome when they were deciding who to vote for.)

One reason this year's election is different is that, for the first time, an African-American is running for the presidency. I think that puts it right up there with 1960 when a Roman Catholic ran (and won!) I bet many of you who voted in that election couldn't believe that you had the opportunity to cast such an historic vote (unless you were old enough to have voted for the Catholic Governor of New York, Al Smith, in '28.) For those of you who voted for a female vice-president in the important election of 1984, this year may seem a little anti-climactic. Still, that's no reason not to participate.

Personally, I was too young to vote in any of the historic and important elections that took place before 1980. That was the first one I voted in and, man, was it important! I voted for the Third Party candidate, John Anderson, because, as an idealistic young person, I was eager to elect someone new and different, who didn't owe anything to the traditional establishment. I was hungry for change and Anderson seemed like a real maverick.

Any election in which a generational shift is in the wind seems pretty darn important to voters on both sides of the divide. Younger voters often feel that their time has come; older ones expect a last hurrah. Back in 1992 when Bill Clinton faced the first George Bush, the sense that the torch was about to be passed to a new generation was almost palpable, just the way it must have been back in 1960.

If you didn't think this year's election was vitally important a few months ago, maybe you've changed your tune recently as the banking crisis has gripped the capital markets tighter and tighter. I can't recall a financial shock this severe since maybe the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 80s and early 90s, the Argentine Debt Crisis of 2000, the Japanese Asset Price Bubble of the late 90s, the Recessions of '53,'57, '80, '81, '90, and 2001 (not to mention the 1973 Oil Crisis,) or maybe the Dot Com Bust of 2000-2001. But for those of you in your 90s and 100s who remember the Great Depression, I'm sure all of those seem like pretty small potatoes. For you, the elections of the 30s were extremely important. I don't mean to compare this one to any of those. That's why I made it number three. But still, it's very important to have the right person in charge, even if the current crisis doesn't turn out to be quite as severe as it sometimes seems.

There's no denying that the latest unemployment figure are the worst in five years. I think that makes it pretty clear how important the upcoming election is while also highlighting how important the last one, four years ago, was. Four years ago was also the last time the Dow was below 10,000. When you look at the numbers, it's hard to deny that 2004 was one of the most important elections ever, even if it didn't seem that way at the time.

We all know that some elections are important not because you need to vote for someone great, but because you need to vote against someone reckless. Throughout the Cold War, the United States faced an existential threat from the Soviet Union. The stakes in any given election were raised or lowered depending on the level of tension. When I think back to 1984 when I rushed to the polls to try and thwart Ronald Reagan's confrontational and destabilizing schemes for a Star Wars missile defense system and an arsenal of nuclear-tipped Pershing II missiles in Europe... well, it's really hard to capture the urgency for kids who are just voting for the first time this November.

Looking back at all those important elections and inspiring candidates like Michael Dukakis and Ralph Nader who really made us feel as though we were on the threshold of a fundamental change in the way government works, I realize that I probably thought each one of the elections I've lived through was very important, maybe even the most important of my lifetime. But since none of us knows what lies ahead, it's not unreasonable to imagine that those of you with long enough lifetimes may eventually look back on this election in the context of unknowable future challenges and decide that it wasn't really the third most important, more like the eighth (any practical immortality serum will make the exercise moot.) But still, that's no reason not to vote. After all, life is long (and getting longer) and you never know.

Comments

[johnwinner]

I am old enough to have seen where this came from and where it is is going. When Reagan was elected, some of us warned that his election would eventually lead (during his presidency or a successor's) to wars, the loss of Constitutional rights, economic disaster. People told us no US President would ever have anything to do with all that! - Now look where we are.
So trust me - this is not only the second most important election since 1932, it is possibvly the last election. If John McCain gets elected, the neocons make permanent their stranglehold on America, and no vote will ever matter again.

[alkamm]

We're at the edge of a revolution Bush began, but Obama will finish. Now the financial sector is socialized, we'll have to use our most brilliant lawyers to reclaim our legal rights and extend them to attack the damage to the environment corporate America has so shamefully designed under a complicit administration.. From day one, the environment will benefit from proper legislative renewal of commitment to make despoilers pay for their depredations.
Obama will bring the best legal mind to bear on the ancien regime which implodes before our eyes. The insurance industry, the energy cartels, and industrial farming must be changed quickly through strict enforcement of existing laws and the passing of laws necessary to save us from their corporate idiocy.
Bush, like Antoinette's Louis, was only the emblematic tip of our dangerously corrupt top down corporate order.
So it's not so much an election as a bloodless revolution we're voting on. We can all volunteer for this one.

[BillZBubb]

The 2004 election was the most important election in recent US history. Bush has the country on the path to economic collapse and neo-fascism. The country, or at least 51% of the voters opted for economic collapse and neo-fascism. But, at least gays didn't get to marry!

This election is important, too, but only in deciding if we are going to continue the neo-fascist, economic rot, Republican route, or try to pick up the pieces of the mess the best we can. I wonder what 51% of the voters will do this time?

[Bushfire]

RIGHT ON!

[LucyTBee]

For what it's worth, my 87-year-old grandmother believes the U.S. is embroiled in the worst mess she has EVER seen. This from someone who was 8 when the Depression began; whose poverty left her orphaned and half-starved; who lost her beloved cousin in WW2; who years later sent her husband to Korea; who even more years later sent two sons to Viet Nam. The fact that even she, a working class Ohio Republican turned Democrat, thinks this is the most important election of her lifetime is telling.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

Your Grandma is one smart cookie. I hope we are all doing a happy dance on election evening.

[AlteSoldier]

Tell voters to Check to make sure they are registered to vote at their voter registration office! The GOP is reducing the voter registration rolls.

Obama or the DNC will have to look into this and maybe file lawsuits. They definitely need the press to report on this. Right now many of the newly registered democratic voters are being kicked off the voter rolls in the battleground states. Democrats Need to come up with a battle plan and action to defeat this threat.

[JRsNana]

I couldn't disagree with the premise more. We have had an assault on our CONSTITUTION this last 8 years. Habeus Corpus was suspended. Laws have been broken repeatedly and those doing said breaking have been given a free pass. Our Department of Justice has been totally politicized. We were taken into war based on lies from our President.
That "my friends" is what makes this the most important election of my lifetime.

[beesquare1]

As a Canadian in the midst of our own national election, I can only WISH we had such a contender as as you have in Barack Obama. From my vantage point, the U.S. stands on the precipice of a golden opportunity - to elect a president who will lead your good nation through very difficult times with confidence, dignity, grace, thoughtfulness, patience, empathy, class, and most importantly, intelligence. An Obama victory has the potential to be historic for so many reasons " not just by breaking the obvious racial barrier, but also by returning big government to the interests of the people, and in the process, wrestling it from the power hungry grips of an antiquated old boys club whose motivations are self-serving, reckless, and frankly, downright dangerous.

So on November 4th, my advice would be to think long and carefully about who your vote will go to, but also to take this opportunity and run with it! Canadians (indeed the world) envy the fact that you have a chance to make history by electing Senator Obama president next month - we may be powerless to do anything about it, but you may never be so fortunate as to have such a golden opportunity handed to you again " I pray, not only for your sake, but for the sake of the world at large, it doesn"t go to waste.

[zjr909]

Bear in mind, please, that we're not voting for a new ruling class - only for who will carry out their policies for the next four years. I plan to do my part and vote for Senator Obama - but only to prove to myself once and for all that it won't make all that much difference. Even with the White House and complete control of Congress, Democrats will still find a way to play the "we ain't got the numbers" card again and again. Politics isn't about "having the numbers"; it's about knowing how to use the "numbers" you do have to get things done. Even if the Republicans had only one senator and one congressperson, they'd find a way to accomplish at least something once in a while. I think it has to do with actually believing in the things you espouse. It's not at all clear that the Democrats believe in much of anything except the next campaign.

[larry278]

Since I'm voting by absantee ballot I find that I may be able to write in my choice. That has caused me to become an undecided voter. If the county election board tells me that my write in vote for the candidate for POTUS & his veep of a minor very radical socialist party will be counted, I'll do it. If I'm told that my write in vote won't be counted, I'll vote for Obama. Since comments on HP are monitored I'm not going to name my favorite. HP decides which comments wiil be posted. If I name my favorite candidate-I'd be campaigning for him. HP has the right to reject comments which are campaign appeals. HP sells ads to candidates; that is how they keep in business. It's called freedom of the press & it's an American tradition. Those are the rules. If you want to see your comment used by HP-you must abide by HP's rules. That, too, is an American tradition. I feel traditional today.

[OneFish]

We're 0 and 2 here. We've watched the last two meatballs go by without so much as a hungry look. They didn't really seem so important at the time but in retrospect those were the two most important elections in my lifetime. Will someone explain to me how after 28 years of a Republican designed economic house of cards it can even be close? The batter pretty much has his eyes closed. I won't rest easily until it's January 21st and any Republican presence in the Whitehouse is by invitation only.

[Spender]

I am 54 years old and this IS the most important election of my lifetime because my fourteen year old daughter deserves a better world to live in than what the Republicans will offer.

[4real]

What gets me angry are the undecided voters. If you haven't made up your mind by now then you are clueless.

[Amalek]

You see the looks of the faces of the "undecided" that attended the town hall debate? Talk about a room full of zombies.