I suppose Election 2008 is the result of ideology being dead. Take a look at the winners thus far.
You have Mike Huckabee, who says nothing in particular about anything. You have Barack Obama, who says everything there is to say about everything in general. I’m sure that each of these men is wrong–profoundly wrong–about many things. If we ever have the catastrophic misfortune to live under the presidency of either of these two men, we’ll find out just how wrong they are about how many things. But I doubt we’ll know much before then. The last time we had a candidate like these who won the Presidency, we ended up with Jimmy Carter. Carter, back in the 1970s, was accused of being inexperienced and “fuzzy” on the issues. Boy, did we find out just how wrong he was once he was in office. At least with someone like Hillary Clinton or John McCain, you can have a more specific sense about the nature of the disaster ahead. Yes, ideology is dead. It’s a national sin to have a philosophy, a set of principles to live by–it’s sinfully “rigid” to think in terms of absolutes and rights, as did the founders of this once great nation. “Aw shucks” Huckabee and “Look at me, I’m a candidate of change” Obama ought to run on a single, Republicrat ticket, because there’s no discernable difference between the two that I can see—not on matters of principle or policy, because neither of them expresses any. We’re past the stage of liberal/conservative, or right/wrong. The winners of the Iowa contest are nothing more than a political pile of meaningless mush. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t given up on the power of ideas. Ideas will become more relevant than ever in their absence. People will realize just how desperately ideas and ideology are needed when such intellectually insignificant people rise to power as those on the march this year.