Incumbency

Many believe that 2008 represents the first honest, fair, true presidential choice by voters in half a century. This could not be farther from the truth. Rather, the 2004, 2000, 1996, 1992, and earlier elections were a truer and fairer judgment by the voters than 2008 will be.

Why? Because politicians are deceptive. Outsider George W. Bush won in 2000 as a "uniter, not a divider". Love him or hate him, you can't pretend he's united anything other than his opposition. Bill Clinton won in 1992 as a centrist Democrat; his first major policy initiative was an abortive attempt to socialize medicine. Voters will never be as sophisticated as politicians and their mercenary machinators, but we are - in the ballot box - more powerful.

Voters cannot evaluate economic policy intelligently - but they do know whether or not they lost their jobs in the past four years. They cannot determine the best way to stop terrorists - but they know whether or not their cities have been bombed. They don't know what sort of justice a president would appoint to the Supreme Court - unless he's done so already.

Incumbency is a gift. It allows us the people to evaluate our leaders on something substantive - the results of their policies - rather than holding a national beauty contest. In 2008, it will take an extraordinary amount of effort, particularly in the wild west of the dual primaries, to elect a good president.