I don’t understand why there is this mantra that history is “bound to repeat itself.”
I agree that reviewing historical trends is helpful, and that there is a reason, sometimes, why trends persist the way they do.
But just as that disclaimer goes on investments: past performance (or presidential cycles) is no guarantee of future performance. And, as I said on another post, don’t y’all watch the NFL draft?
The U.S. had a completely aberrational election right before the Civil War and we may be in a similar juncture of the country having to figure out its identity going into its next century.
Also much about how past presidential elections developed was dependent upon the old ways of disseminating news, reaching the public, and fundraising. Those old rules are over!
This is the first fully new-media, social-media-ized presidential election in history. The parties and the Establishment have the ground shifting under their feet. I honestly believe we are going to see a new way of doing things.
Just as Palin is said to be going to run a new, unconventional campaign (if she runs), this is basically what Bachmann is doing. She is doing it a new way. She is not running as a Member of Congress. She is running as someone who had already attracted national attention and fundraising through her millions of appearances on talk radio, tv, at rallies, etc.
From the looks of the presidents we have had, whatever criteria we have been using for the proper "training" to be president has not been working. Let's not do the same thing over and over again with the dismal results we have seen. It's time to break the mold and get some real people as candidates.