…and he’s serving up some premium, awesome, genuine, vintage Bacon:
These three inter-related crises will define the politics and economy of Virginia and America for the next generation. Yet both candidates have framed their campaign issues in utterly conventional terms, as if there were nothing at all urgent about the times in which we find ourselves.
True, both men offer “energy” plans but both plans fall far short of the deep structural transformation that is needed to preserve Virginia’s living standards and economic competitiveness. True, both candidates talk about improving “government efficiency,” but their ideas, even if enacted in total, would only tinker on the margins of the restructuring that is needed. Neither candidate touches upon the Age Wave in a meaningful way.
People of Virginia! Our nation, and by extension our state, is in a long-term, multiform crisis, the nature of which most people are only dimly aware. Neither Deeds nor McDonnell show any evidence through their public pronouncements that they comprehend the nature of the challenge facing us.
I think I’m more thrilled to see Jim Bacon back than anything else… and he does raise some awesome questions that rise above the din of typical campaign politics. Glad to see the return of one of the old guard!