Forward to the Past

With a twist on back-to-the-future, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s popular speech at the Republican National Convention took today’s politics forward to the past. She managed to energize the party’s faithful there, along with a record number of television onlookers, by resurfacing the culture war conservative Republicans so successfully campaigned on in recent elections.

Just when the economy and the war and the environment had monopolized the political debates — as they should have — she managed, in one hour, to restart the red-blue war over her example of banning books, using guns, avoiding abortion — small town-versus-big city issues that Sen. Obama had hoped to turn the political page on.

Going forward to the past may be good politics for the 2008 Republicans — it worked in the last two elections. But the strategy is a bad throwback for the country. One hopes the Democrats and the media that project the election story will throw away this throwback. This election is not a culture war; it is a popular vote that needs to turn on choosing better solutions for the country’s serious common problems.