CGS-authored
By one o'clock Wednesday morning, Democrats had taken the lead in the U.S. Senate races in Virginia and Montana. Control of the Senate came down to Missouri, where Democrat Claire McCaskill trailed Jim Talent, the Republican incumbent, with three-quarters of the ballots counted. In a final surge, McCaskill took the race and the Senate. And with her came the political issue of the future: biotechnology.
Until now, elections have focused on three kinds of issues. During the Cold War, national security vied with economics. Cultural issues came third. Then Communism collapsed, and we crushed Iraq in the Gulf War. Military and foreign policy lost their urgency, and a recession dominated the 1992 presidential campaign. "It's the economy, stupid," argued strategists for the governor of Arkansas. So we put him in the White House.
As the economy improved, that issue, too, lost urgency. Cultural debates took over. Guns helped the GOP capture Congress in 1994. Conservatives developed two new wedge issues: gay marriage and partial-birth abortion. No piety seemed too small. A presidential campaign about V-chips and school uniforms was followed...