Every presidential election in the last fifty years has been called, in the heat of the campaign, the "Most Important Election of Our Lifetime," or something like that.  We live so much in the ephemeral moment, the endless cascade of "important news," which is neither important nor news, that it is easy for us to believe that this election really, really matters.  Who honestly can say that if Romney or McCain beat Obama or that if Kerry or Gore beat Bush or that if Dole beat Clinton or Ford beat Carter or Humphrey beat Nixon, that our world – especially the messes in our world – would be very different from how they are today?  JFK, had he not been killed, would have likely lost in 1964 and would today be as inconsequential as Herbert Hoover in our view of American history. The vast majority of presidential elections have been modestly important but never really important, except for Reagan in 1980 and, to a lesser extent,...(Read Full Article)