The stakes

One counterintuitive idea making the rounds in the last couple weeks is that maybe possibly the stakes of this election won't be unusually high. Sure, they could be high, but usually the importance or non-importance of a presidency isn't evident until after the election. Here's Ezra Klein: "I'm not a fan of this "most important election" business. Judging "the most important election" in advance is tricky stuff, because elections tend to become important during presidencies."

And here's Ross Douthat, "All Presidential elections are important, of course, and they're usually important for reasons that nobody sees coming during the election itself."

This is all true enough, but sometimes extant circumstances are seismic enough to all but assure a high stakes presidency. If Ross were to ask me why I think this election is uniquely important, I'd say: Iraq, Afghanistan, preventive war, peak oil, climate change, financial crisis, recession, Supreme Court, and Sarah Palin. Some of these issues won't go critical, but it's difficult to imagine that none of them will.

Here's Ezra's response: "As for 2008, who knows? It could be that it's not very important at all: Iraq will wind down, the financial mess will calm, and the government's crummy finances will ensure that little of note gets done."

And here's Ross's: "[G]iven the evidence presented to date - the enormous constraints on American action abroad, a fiscal situation that more or less ensures that neither candidate's boldest ideas are likely to get off the ground, and the unimaginative, substance-averse politicking of the candidates themselves - there's good reason to think that the outcome of this election won't be nearly as transformational as many people seem to think."

Not exactly comprehensive answers, but of course, I don' think they were meant to be. So I think it's worth turning the question back on them: Under what circumstances can you envision this election becoming inconsequential?