An Epochal Battle; Iowa kicks off the most wide-open race since '80; Looking beyond the Reagan-Bush era
When Iowa voters walk into their state's caucuses tomorrow night, they will be kicking off a milestone campaign year that promises a new political course for America.</br></br>For the first time in 80 years, no incumbent president or vice president from either party is seeking the White House, creating an unusually unsettled campaign with no obvious front-runner. Power in Congress is divided so evenly between the two parties that neither has really been in control since the 2006 elections. Now, in the wide-open 2008 general election, voters will declare whom they want to run the executive and legislative branches.</br></br>Americans will make that choice at a time when they are distinctly uneasy. Record numbers of voters are choosing to declare themselves politically independent -- and thus open to moving either left or right. Both the Republican president and the Democratic Congress are receiving historically low public-approval ratings, another sign of voter unease. More broadly, the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has in recent months found the nation to be in the midst of the most prolonged period of public dissatisfaction in 15 years, as measured by the share of voters who say the country is "on the wrong track."</br></br>In one sense change is inevitable. This year marks the end of what can be considered the Reagan-Bush era in American politics that began when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. In six of the last seven general elections, a candidate named Reagan or Bush has appeared atop a national ticket, defining a brand of internationally engaged conservatism that has been the dominant strain in American politics for more than a generation.</br></br>Now the stage is set for an ideological rethinking in both parties. "The mood for change is more than one of small incremental adjustments," write Republican pollster Bill McInturff and Democrat Peter Hart, who conduct the Journal/NBC News poll. "It is concern for the next generation as well as widespread unhappiness with both President Bush and the Congress."