The Day After The Election

The day after is at hand. Unless something unusual happens, by Wednesday morning the presidential election of 2012 will be over. In the popular mind, the end of a campaign signals the beginning of a new phase in public life—often quite explicitly, from the New Deal to the New Frontier to the Reagan Revolution. Such points of departure, though, are the exceptions, not the rules in American politics. In fact, what does the conclusion of a campaign really signify in a nation that has almost always considered politics a perennial exercise?

More