The election has taken a dramatic turn over the last few weeks that no one foresaw a year ago and no one knows how it will end. Any pundit, commentator or columnist who says they know who will be the next President is either a fool or a partisan.
And as Lincoln once said, “Better to be silent and be thought a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt.” So I will take his counsel and not make a prediction on who will win in November.
However there is one thing of which I am more certain. America is entering a new age—the Age of Uncertainty. This new era has been coming for a long time and its roots run deep.
The very cornerstones of the American system that have sustained this nation through good times and bad are being challenged as never before and some will disappear forever. Financial institutions that have been around for many years have already disappeared and more are likely to follow. The media giants of the last century, the newspapers, are in serious trouble challenged by the internet, theblogosphere and a rapidly changing media environment.
And the most critical element, the government, has lost all trust with the American people. This all did not all happen on George Bush’s watch or on Bill Clinton’s watch before that. And we the people are not blameless either.
So how did we get here? Well, look at what we are facing.
A hyper partisan Congress that is incapable of addressing any problems. This is the only bipartisan thing they have in common. Harry Reid epitomized that when he said recently in an amazing admission for a politician, “No one knows what to do.” At last an honest statement from Washington.
A financial structure that has been rocked to its foundations and the laws Congress proposes to address its problems forget the one universal law that supersedes all others– the one law they cannot write– the law of unintended consequences.
An intractable enemy that we do not face across traditional battle lines of the past, army against army, soldier against soldier but one that can strike at any moment with devastating effect.
An energy problem that makes us beggars at the table of those who do not wish us well and who are using their petrodollars to fund terrorists on one hand and buy up American businesses and loan us back our own money on the other.
In addition, we have had too many years of easy money and our spendthrift ways have made us a debtor nation with no money in our savings accounts and the bills are coming due.
Need further proof?
How about unfinished business in Iraq, an Iran with nuclear weapons, a coming leadership change in the hermit kingdom of volatile North Korea, a resurgent Russia longing for the Tsarist empire of 150 years ago, and an Africa still in turmoil and racked by the AIDS epidemic.
And that is just a start. There isn’t enough space in this column to fit it all in.
The two candidates for President need to tell us how they will handle this brave new world and how they will lead us out of this mess and into a brighter day.
The question that voters will have to answer on November 4th is really a simple one. Who do you trust to lead America in this Age of Uncertainty, manage some of the chaos that is sure to come, and meet the new challenges that have not yet manifested themselves?
Over the final weeks of the campaign, that is the fundamental question voters will have to answer.
We are at a fork in the road, and how they answer and who they choose will set the nation on two very different paths of what our uncertain future will hold.