In a one-word election (Iraq) the post-mortems can begin early.
Most of them are too complex. Other Democratic talking points (Foley, corruption, deficits) merely buttress the main charge. The Republican talking points (terrorism, the economy, immigration) are simply drowned-out.
Take out Iraq and it's likely Democrats still win, albeit more narrowly. But you can't take out Iraq. Iraq is the elephant in the room. How could this happen? What do we do now? What happens next? These are the question Americans want answered. They are looking to Democrats for answers because Republicans haven't dealt with it.
Ironically, this is just what happened 40 years ago, at the previous generational turn. Then the one word was Vietnam. It was a Democratic problem. Republicans won. It was the same in 1930, the word being Depression. And the same in 1894, the word being Money. And the same in 1858, the word being slavery.
A generational crisis is always highlighted by a blow-out election. Sometimes, as in 1930, it presages another blowout, which is what happened in 1932. Sometimes, as in 1894 and 1966, it means there's a re-alignment coming, progressivism-populism in the first case, the Southern Strategy in the second.
Sometimes it means the whole temple is about to fall. That's what happened in 1858. The fear of it happening this time is still very real. And it's this kind of fear which drives the generational re-alignment. Without such fear there can be no political transformation, inside people, where it counts.
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