More Hopeful about 2008 elections

No matter who wins the primary race on the Democratic side, Clinton or Obama, I'll be happy. A McCain victory on the Republican side would also please me, and I may even learn to look on the bright side if Romney wins (despite his anti-immigrant race baiting).

I'm a Democrat who's voted Republican precisely once in her life. (My next door neighbor ran for registrar of voters.) Why am I so happy about the prospects of one or two particular Republican candidates?

Because for the first time in my politically conscious life, the American people may get a presidential election worthy of their attention.

What is a presidential election worthy of us? A presidential election in which both candidates are good options for moderate voters. An election in which much of the population feels it could vote either way and must really make a choice. Contrast this to the 2000 and 2004 elections, in which a small portion of the electorate was undecided and candidates instead focused on turning out their supporters.

Right now I'm pretty optimistic about the 2008 election. It might be the rare presidential election that makes me more proud to be an American.

I wasn't so sunny about the election a few weeks ago. Up until McCain's win in South Carolina and New Hampshire, I was pessimistic . In my mind's eye, I could picture the 2008 elections becoming a sorry, exhausting reprisal of the 2000 and 2004 elections: a campaign in which the culture wars feature front and center. In a moment of fatality after the Iowa caucus, I bet my husband one weeks of dish washing that Huckabee would win the Republican primary. (Despite the suds involved in losing this bet, I'm pretty happy that it is increasingly likely that I will lose.)

If you think about presidential elections since I became politically cognizant (1996 on), my prediction made sense. Of the three presidential races I recall, two placed the country's cultural dividing lines front and center: Bush v. Gore, and Bush v. Kerry. The candidates in these races seemed to loathe each other because their concepts of the United States differed so greatly (remember that moment in 2000 when Gore said he didn't hate Bush and Bush looked stunned?).

Here's to a 2008 election that might actually make Americans feel like they have something in common: a tough choice.