What's wrong with this Presidential election season?

Sara Robinson offers an answer that seems pretty accurate to me.

The primary season's relentless focus on race and gender has distracted us from a far more important fact, which is: Most of America under 50 is sick to tears of the way Boomers (both left and right, but especially right) do politics. The common thread that ties the '60s radicals to the Bushites is the soul-deep conviction that political confrontation is the only way to create any kind of social change. This leads to a political style that is relentlessly ideological and implacably hostile to negotiation, diplomacy, or compromise. Their vision of the future is Utopian (though the utopias vary); but the desire to achieve that all-important glorious end too often justifies means that betray the very principles the group is trying to promote.

There's a lot of truth in that paragraph, as there is in her entire article. Go read it.

That said, I graduated from an all-white segregated high school in Texas and after college joined the Army where official segregation was illegal. To see the social changes in this nation over the last half century and watch as the Democrats actually nominate an African American for President is an utterly amazing and delightful thing. And it's not that he is being nominated because he is African American. It's because he is the best man for the job, and he is not being penalized so heavily for his race that he can't even run for the job.

But maybe he can bring the new politics he promises with him, too. I've watched the radical right run out all the moderate Republicans and practice its "take no prisoners - never negotiate" politics all my life and I have reached the position that anything a conservative says is automatically wrong because of the way they try to cram it down everyone's throat. The Bush administration's Perpetual Campaign Mode rather than effective governance is just one more manifestation of that right-wing approach to politics.

Let's hope this year marks the beginning of the recovery of democracy and civil discourse in this nation.

Go read Sara's article. It's another good one.