It's All About 2012.

Lately, I've been hearing from disappointed readers of my columns in the Chester Village News - and a few from this page - questioning how an outspoken progressive can dismiss the keen, problem-solving intellect of Hillary Clinton and the remarkable charm and rhetorical talents of Barack Obama to support J0hn McCain.


The answer resides in my admittedly unusual perspective - the product of a lifetime of reading and teaching History. Put simply, I tend to take the long view.


This has not always paid off. As an investor, I'm not always good at holding the stocks which my long-range view leads me to choose. In the public sphere, I often find myself in the precarious position of being well ahead of public opinion - not a good place to be in a democracy.


Still, it's an honest perspective, and I recommend it to the 10% or so of thinking Americans who resist the temptation to obsess over the latest headline - who struggle daily to understand where we are in the long march of History.


So, with that stipulation, my view of the upcoming presidential election is concerned - not with who wins in 2008 - but with who wins in 2012, and thereafter.

After all, the President who takes office 0n Tuesday, January 20, 2009, will confront a heculean task - cleansing the Bushean stables.

America will be, very likely, at the tail end of a recession or in the first months of a tentative recovery. The new President will confront a Federal budget badly out of balance - with many key operations of government sadly underfunded - at a time when raising taxes would be risky.

The new President will confront two long, inconclusive wars - in Iraq and Afghanistan - and a number of long-postponed problems (Pakistan, Sudan, North Korea) with the potential to become military.

The dollar will be low, oil will be high, and - as America will still have done nothing about global warming - the world will be waiting for our lead.

The new President will need to focus on climate change as part of an overall effort to reestablish decent relations with most of the world and to put our intelligence and security operations back on the right side of our own Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and other aspects of international law.

And the new President will face a Congress with very questionable leadership. Under Speaker Pelosi, the House is slowly becoming a functioning body - but the Speaker continues to depend on a handful of conservative Democrats for her majority. The Senate will have a larger Democratic majority - under leadership with a long-standing habit of pusillanimity.

And - election year fantasies to one side - Washington will still be Washington. Interest groups will still ignore the general welfare in favor of their peculiar constituencies. Lobbyists will still far outnumber our elected representatives. Legislation will still require subtle arts and brutal arm-twisting.

In short, the next President will confront an inbox over-flowing with problems left behind - and often created - by one of the most incompetent, secretive, devious, power-hungry Administrations in our history.

He, or she, will have to deal with this enormous backlog - with limited financial resources - at a time when a badly-divided people continue divided. Faced by a challenge so daunting, there will be little time for an inexperienced President to find his feet, pull together a team, and develop a positive agenda - especially if he wants to be re-elected.

Frankly, I don't think it can be done. In my judgement, the next President will be overwhelmed by his challenges - and the impatience of the American people. He will, almost certainly, serve only one term.

Which leads logically to this question: Given a choice between a relatively moderate, very experienced Republican whose positions on the most pressing issues I can live with, and a relatively inexperienced Democrat riding a nascent progressive wave - which gives me the best prospect of a truly progressive president in the more promising - if admittedly hypothetical - conditions of 2013?

As I see it, a Democratic victory in 2008 - followed by a disappointing four years - leads the GOP to return to a hard-right candidate in a winning Election Year 2012.

On the other hand, a McCain victory in 2008 will give us a President competent to handle the worst of Bush's mess and moves the GOP slightly toward the center - while giving time for progressive forces to complete their takeover of the Democratic Party and prepare for a truly progressive administration in 2013.

If this seems entirely too suppositional, I leave you with this question: If you could go back in time and arrange for Al Smith (or some other Democrat) to defeat Herbert Hoover in 1928, would you do it? Would you allow the Democrats to bear the blame for the Crash of '29 - and assure a series of Republican presidents through the Depression and World War II?

I, for one, would not. The crises of depression and war assured 20 years of Democratic rule - and took America a long way down the road toward the successful, liberal-centrist polity of the mid-20th century.

It is only with dread that I imagine America in an all-out war - with the extraordinary wartime powers of government in the hands of mid-20th century conservatives. We might barely have escaped - if at all - some form of homegrown fascism.

So, likewise, I can more readily contemplate a one-term President McCain (2009 - 2013) than a President Huckabee, Santorum, or Jeb Bush taking the oath of office on January 20, 2013.